Merc: An R Package for Correcting Measurement Error Bias Based on Regression Calibration Method

Author(s)

Liu X1, Zhou X2
1University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 2Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

Presentation Documents

OBJECTIVES: The new R package "merc" was developed to implement the Regression Calibration method for reliability study in linear regression, logistic regression and cox regression.

METHODS: Measurement error with covariates can cause bias in the estimate of coefficients and variance. However, sometimes there is no “gold standard” for exposure assessment such as systolic blood pressure and serum hormones. While a single measurement is subject to random within-person error, the average of repeated measurements within a short time period could be considered a gold standard for true exposure value. Regression Calibration for reliability study was developed to assess the relation between replicates and true exposure. There are two types of reliability studies. One is internal reliability study which uses a random sample from the main study and collects their repeated measures of exposure. Another one is external reliability study which collects replicates from participants external to the main study.

RESULTS: There is very few statistical software to implement Regression Calibration. So far, SAS macro %relibpls8 can be used only for internal reliability study, and R package "mecor" is only for continuous outcomes. The R package "merc" implements the Regression Calibration for reliability study raised by Rosner et al in linear regression, logistic regression and cox regression. The main function "mercRel" calculates naive and corrected estimates of coefficients and variance for both internal and external reliability study.

CONCLUSIONS: Regression Calibration is widely accepted in Nutrition Epidemiology, Environmental Epidemiology, and other fields. For example, in the Framingham Heart Study, internal reliability study is used to correct measurement bias of risk factors like serum cholesterol concentration, serum glucose concentration, and BMI to precisely estimate the influence on lO-year cumulative incidence of coronary artery disease. Overall, the new R package "merc" offers more efficiency and flexibility to implement Regression Calibration method compared to existing statistical software.

Conference/Value in Health Info

2023-05, ISPOR 2023, Boston, MA, USA

Value in Health, Volume 26, Issue 6, S2 (June 2023)

Code

MSR60

Topic

Methodological & Statistical Research

Topic Subcategory

Confounding, Selection Bias Correction, Causal Inference

Disease

Diabetes/Endocrine/Metabolic Disorders (including obesity), Oncology

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