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Published on: January 8, 2020
Loss of power by degree of heaping in covariables
Matthias Becher1, Willi Sauerbrei2, Heiko Becher3
1Institute of Biometry and Clinical Epidemiology, Charité - University Medical Center Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Charitéplatz 1, 10117, Berlin, Germany. matthias.becher@charite.de.
Abstract:
Heaping or digit preference is frequently occurring in health research data as well as in deliberate data masking. We investigate the associated loss of power associated by degree of heaping by simulation and illustrate the effect with a real dataset. Moderate heaping leads to little power loss and may be tolerable. However, heaping in broad categories induces major power loss and should be avoided.
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