Multi-Signal Safety Surveillance with Bayesian Latent Factor Modeling and Bias Correction

Abstract

Safety surveillance increasingly involves repeated monitoring of many exposure-outcome signals in observational healthcare data, where sparse information, dependence across related signals, and systematic error can complicate inference. Existing frameworks typically focus on either correcting residual bias using negative controls or borrowing information across exposure-outcome pairs, but not both. We propose a multi-signal Bayesian sequential surveillance framework that integrates empirical bias correction with low-rank latent factor modeling. At each analysis time, a hierarchical Bayesian model learns exposure-specific bias distributions from negative control outcomes assumed to have null latent effects. Conditional on these distributions, low-rank latent factors are estimated across exposures and outcomes of interest to share information across correlated signals. As new data accrue, posterior inference is updated sequentially, yielding bias-corrected posterior summaries of effect sizes across multiple monitored signals. We illustrate the method in a postmarket vaccine safety surveillance study using a large US insurance claims database.