Student seminar series
Xiaoya Wang
PhD Candidate
Room: M3 3127
The effect of prenatal alcohol exposure on child cognition: causal analysis with semi-continuous exposures and multiple outcomes
We address the challenge of causal inference status and the dose-response effects with a semicontinuousexposure. A two-stage approach is proposed using estimating equation for multiple outcomes with large-sample properties derived for the resulting estimators. Homogeneity tests are developed to assess whether causal effects of exposure status and the dose-response effects are the same across multiple outcomes. A global homogeneity test is also developed to assess whether the effect of exposure status (exposed/not exposed) and the dose-response effect of the continuous exposure level are each equal across all outcomes. The methods of estimation and testing are rigorously evaluated in simulation studies and applied to a motivating study on the effects of prenatal alcohol exposure on childhood cognition defined by executive function (EF), academic achievement in math, and learning and memory (LM). The analysis indicates an adverse impact of exposure on childhood cognition