The Joint Statistics seminars are aimed at researchers, employees, and students.
This week's seminar is given by Mohammad Ghasempour, Umeå School of Business, Economics and Statistics (USBE), Umeå University.
Title: Causal inference targeting a concentration index for studies of health inequalities
Abstract: A concentration index, a standardized covariance between a health outcome and relative income ranks, is often used to quantify income-related health inequalities. There is, however, a lack of formal approach to study the effect of an exposure/intervention, e.g., education, on such measures of inequality. In this paper we contribute to this gap by developing the theory and method in this field. We define a counterfactual concentration index of interests for different levels of an exposure. We then deduce the efficient influence function of this target estimand, which allows us to propose estimators, which are regular asymptotic linear under certain conditions. Nuisance functions, possibly high-dimensional, need to be fitted to implement these estimators. The latter have robustness properties allowing for convergence rates slower than n-rate for some of the nuisance function fits. The relevance of the asymptotic results for finite samples is studied with simulation experiments. We also present a case study of the effect of education on income-related health inequality for a Swedish cohort born 1950.
