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Updated: Nov 16, 2025
Inverse Probability of Treatment Weighting Propensity Score using the Military Health System Data Repository and National Death Index
Published on: January 8, 2020
Propensity score trimming mitigates bias due to covariate measurement error in inverse probability of treatment
Mitchell M Conover1, Kenneth J Rothman2,3, Til Stürmer1
1Department of Epidemiology, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA.
Background:
Inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) may be biased by influential observations, which can occur from misclassification of strong exposure predictors.
Methods:
We evaluated bias and precision of IPTW estimators in the presence of a misclassified confounder and assessed the effect of propensity score (PS) trimming. We generated 1000 plasmode cohorts of size N = 10 000, sampled with replacement from 6063 NHANES respondents (1999-2014) age 40 to 79 with labs and no statin use. We simulated statin exposure as a function of demographics and CVD risk factors; and outcomes as a function of 10-year CVD risk score and statin exposure (rate ratio [RR] = 0.5). For 5% of the people in selected populations (eg, all patients, exposed, those with outcomes), we randomly misclassified a confounder that strongly predicted exposure. We fit PS models and estimated RRs using IPTW and 1:1 PS matching, with and without asymmetric trimming.
Results:
IPTW bias was substantial when misclassification was differential by outcome (RR range: 0.38-0.63) and otherwise minimal (RR range: 0.51-0.53). However, trimming reduced bias for IPTW, nearly eliminating it at 5% trimming (RR range: 0.49-0.52). In one scenario, when the confounder was misclassified for 5% of those with outcomes (0.3% of cohort), untrimmed IPTW was more biased and less precise (RR = 0.37 [SE(logRR) = 0.21]) than matching (RR = 0.50 [SE(logRR) = 0.13]). After 1% trimming, IPTW estimates were unbiased and more precise (RR = 0.49 [SE(logRR) = 0.12]) than matching (RR = 0.51 [SE(logRR) = 0.14]).
Conclusions:
Differential misclassification of a strong predictor of exposure resulted in biased and imprecise IPTW estimates. Asymmetric trimming reduced bias, with more precise estimates than matching.
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