Type: Package
Title: Estimating the Cluster Specific Treatment Effects in Partially Nested Designs
Version: 0.1.0
Maintainer: Xiao Liu <xiao.liu@austin.utexas.edu>
Description: Implements the methods for assessing heterogeneous cluster-specific treatment effects in partially nested designs as described in Liu (2024) <doi:10.1037/met0000723>. The estimation uses the multiply robust method, allowing for the use of machine learning methods in model estimation (e.g., random forest, neural network, and the super learner ensemble). Partially nested designs (also known as partially clustered designs) are designs where individuals in the treatment arm are assigned to clusters (e.g., teachers, tutoring groups, therapists), whereas individuals in the control arm have no such clustering.
Depends: R (≥ 4.0.0)
Imports: stats, mvtnorm, SuperLearner, ranger, xgboost, nnet, origami, boot, tidyverse, dplyr, purrr, magrittr, glue
Suggests: testthat, knitr, rmarkdown
URL: https://github.com/xliu12/PND.heter
License: GPL-2
Encoding: UTF-8
LazyData: true
RoxygenNote: 7.3.1
NeedsCompilation: no
Packaged: 2025-06-03 13:39:44 UTC; xl9663
Author: Xiao Liu [aut, cre]
Repository: CRAN
Date/Publication: 2025-06-05 10:00:08 UTC

Estimation of the cluster-specific treatment effects in the partially nested design.

Description

Estimation of the cluster-specific treatment effects in the partially nested design.

Usage

atekCl(
  data_in,
  ttname,
  Kname,
  Yname,
  Xnames,
  Yfamily = "gaussian",
  learners_tt = c("SL.glm"),
  learners_k = c("SL.multinom"),
  learners_y = c("SL.glm"),
  sensitivity = NULL,
  cv_folds = 4L,
  seed = NULL
)

Arguments

data_in

A data.frame containing all necessary variables.

ttname

[character]
A character string of the column name of the treatment variable. The treatment variable should be dummy-coded, with 1 for the (clustered) treatment arm and 0 for the (non-clustered) control arm.

Kname

[character]
A character string of the column name of the cluster assignment variable. This variable should be coded as 0 for individuals in the control arm, the arm without the cluster assignment.

Yname

[character]
A character string of the column name of the outcome variable

Xnames

[character]
A character vector of the column names of the baseline covariates.

Yfamily

[numeric(1)]
Variable type of the outcome, with Yfamily = "gaussian" for continuous outcome, and Yfamily = "binomial" for binary outcome.

learners_tt

[character]
A character vector of methods for estimating the treatment model, chosen from the SuperLearner R package. Default is "SL.glm", a generalized linear model for the binary treatment variable. Other available methods can be found using the R function SuperLearner::listWrappers().

learners_k

[character]
A character string of a method for estimating the cluster assignment model, which can be one of "SL.multinom" (default), "SL.xgboost.modified", "SL.ranger.modified", and "SL.nnet.modified". Default is "SL.multinom", the multinomial regression (nnet::multinom) for the categorical cluster assignment using the treatment arm data. The other options are "SL.xgboost.modified" (gradient boosted model, xgboost::xgboost), "SL.ranger.modified" (random forest model, ranger::ranger), and "SL.nnet.modified" (neural network model, "SL.nnet.modified") modified for fitting categorical response variable of type multinomial.

learners_y

[character]
A character vector of methods for estimating the outcome model, chosen from the SuperLearner R package. Default is "SL.glm", a generalized linear model for the outcome variable, with family specified by Yfamily. Other available methods can be found using the R function SuperLearner::listWrappers().

sensitivity

Specification for sensitivity parameter values on the standardized mean difference scale, which can be NULL (default) or "small_to_medium". If NULL, no sensitivity analysis will be run. If "small_to_medium", the function will run a sensitivity analysis for the cluster assignment ignorability assumption, and the sensitivity parameter values indicate a deviation from this assumption of magnitude 0.1 and 0.3 standardized mean difference.

cv_folds

[numeric(1)]
The number of cross-fitting folds. Default is 4.

seed

An integer that is used as argument by the set.seed() for offsetting the random number generator. Default is to leave the random number generator alone.

Value

A list containing the following components:

ate_K

A data.frame of the estimation results.

The columns "ate_k", "std_error", "CI_lower", and "CI_upper" contain the estimate, standard error estimate, and lower and upper bounds of the 0.95 confidence interval of the cluster-specific treatment effect for the cluster (indicated by column "cluster") in the same row.

cv_components

A data.frame of nuisance model estimates.

sens_results

NULL if the argument sensitivity = NULL.

If the argument sensitivity = "small_to_medium" is specified, sens_results is a list of four data frames, containing the estimation results with the sensitivity parameter value (standardized mean difference) being 0.1, 0.3, -0.1, -0.3.

Examples


library(tidyverse)
library(SuperLearner)
library(glue)
library(nnet)

# data
data(data_in)
data_in <- data_in

# baseline covariates
Xnames <- c(grep("X_dat", colnames(data_in), value = TRUE))

estimates_ate_K <- PND.heter.cluster::atekCl(
data_in = data_in,
ttname = "tt",  # treatment variable
Kname = "K",    # cluster assignment variable, coded as 0 for
                # individuals in the (non-clustered) control arm
Yname = "Y",    # outcome variable
Xnames = Xnames,
seed = 12345
)
estimates_ate_K$ate_K

Checking covariate balance based on estimated cluster assignment probabilities (principal score) and treatment assignment probabilities (propensity score).

Description

Checking covariate balance based on estimated cluster assignment probabilities (principal score) and treatment assignment probabilities (propensity score).

Usage

balance(data_in, atekCl_results, covariate_names = "X_dat.1", ttname, Kname)

Arguments

data_in

A data.frame containing all necessary variables.

atekCl_results

[list]
A list returned from the R function atekCl().

covariate_names

[character]
A character vector of the column names of the baseline covariates for checking balance.

ttname

[character]
A character string of the column name of the treatment variable. The treatment variable should be dummy-coded, with 1 for the (clustered) treatment arm and 0 for the (non-clustered) control arm.

Kname

[character]
A character string of the column name of the cluster assignment variable. This variable should be coded as 0 for individuals in the control arm, the arm without the cluster assignment.

Value

A data.frame containing the covariate balance measures (smd, standardized mean difference) between each cluster in the treatment arm and the control arm, both before and after the weighting adjustment.

data_in

Description

A simulated dataset from the 2/1 partially nested design with treatment-incuded clustering

Usage

data_in

Format

A data frame with 400 rows and 8 variables:

Y

Outcome.

K

Cluster assignment in the treatment arm.

tt

Treatment assignment. 1 for individuals assigned to the treatment arm. 0 for individuals assigned to the control arm. The control arm is unclustered.

X_dat.1

Baseline covariates.

X_dat.2

Baseline covariates.

X_dat.3

Baseline covariates.

X_dat.4

Baseline covariates.

id

Individual id.

partially_nested_data_example

Description

An example dataset with the 2/1 partially nested design where the clustering is induced by treatment delivery. The example was based on the public-use data of the National Center for Research on Early Childhood Education Teacher Professional Development Study (2007-2011; for details about the study, see this [website](https://www.childandfamilydataarchive.org/cfda/archives/cfda/studies/34848/versions/V2)). The participants were assigned to either the treatment or control arms. The treatment arm was a one-on-one, web-mediated consultancy intervention in which the participants received online coaching from one of J = 12 coaches; that is, each coach represents a cluster in this example. The control arm participants had no such clustering.

Usage

partially_nested_data_example

Format

A data frame with 308 rows and 8 variables:

Posttest_Instructional_Support

The outcome variable, measuring the instructional support quality after the intervention program.

Coach_ID

Coach (i.e., cluster) assignment for participants in the treatment arm.

Intervention_Assignment

Treatment assignment. 1 for participants assigned to the treatment arm to receive the intervention program. 0 for participants assigned to the control arm. The control arm is unclustered.

X_gender

Baseline covariates.

X_age

Baseline covariates.

X_TRace_Black

Baseline covariates.

X_TRace_Hispanic

Baseline covariates.

X_TRace_White

Baseline covariates.

X_Tses_aboveMiddle

Baseline covariates.

X_TINTNEED

Baseline covariates.

X_Tparedu_aboveHS

Baseline covariates.

X_yrs_education

Baseline covariates.

X_yrs_teaching_experience

Baseline covariates.

X_CLASSPOV

Baseline covariates.

X_Cheadstart

Baseline covariates.

X_CpublicSCH

Baseline covariates.

X_self_efficacy

Baseline covariates.

X_pretest_emotional_support

Baseline covariates.

X_pretest_organizational_support

Baseline covariates.

X_pretest_instructional_support

Baseline covariates.

X_extraversion

Baseline covariates.

X_agreeableness

Baseline covariates.

X_conscientiousness

Baseline covariates.

id

Participant id.