Efficient adjustment for complex covariates: Gaining efficiency with DOPE

Abstract

Covariate adjustment is a ubiquitous method used to estimate the average treatment effect (ATE) from observational data. Assuming a known graphical structure of the data generating model, recent results give graphical criteria for optimal adjustment, which enables efficient estimation of the ATE. However, graphical approaches are challenging for high-dimensional and complex data, and it is not straightforward to specify a meaningful graphical model of non-Euclidean data such as texts. We propose a new framework that accommodates adjustment for any subset of information expressed by the covariates, and we show that the information that is minimally sufficient for prediction of the outcome given the treatment is also most efficient for adjustment. Based on our theoretical results, we propose the Debiased Outcome-adapted Propensity Estimator (DOPE) for efficient estimation of the ATE, and we provide asymptotic results for DOPE under general conditions. Compared to the augmented inverse propensity weighted (AIPW) estimator, DOPE can retain its efficiency even when the covariates are highly predictive of treatment. We illustrate this with a single-index model, and with an implementation of DOPE based on neural networks, we demonstrate its performance on simulated and real data. Our results show that DOPE provides an efficient and robust methodology for ATE estimation in various observational settings.