Evidence mapPaperPMID 40895281Full record

ArticleJournal of the American Statistical Association2025

Federated Adaptive Causal Estimation (FACE) of Target Treatment Effects.

Larry Han, Jue Hou, Kelly Cho, Rui Duan, Tianxi Cai

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Journal of the American Statistical Association, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
7citing papers in PubMed
field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

7 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. COADVISE: covariate adjustment with variable selection in randomized controlled trials.Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A, (Statistics in Society) · 2026
    Article
  2. Article
  3. Article
  4. A Review of Methods for Research Synthesis.Statistics in medicine · 2025
    Article
  5. Article
  6. Review
  7. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Larry HanDepartment of Biostatistics, Harvard University.
Jue HouDivision of Biostatistics, University of Minnesota.
Kelly ChoMassachusetts Veterans Epidemiology Research and Information Center, US Department of Veteran Affairs.
Rui DuanDepartment of Biostatistics, Harvard University.
Tianxi CaiDepartment of Biostatistics, Harvard University.

Funding

Bridging clinical trial and real-world data via machine learning to advance rheumatoid arthritis treatment strategiesR01AR080193 · NIAMS · BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL · 2022 to 2025
$1.4M
Federated and transfer learning methods for cross-ancestry and cross-phenotype integration of genomic datasetsR01GM148494 · NIGMS · HARVARD UNIVERSITY D/B/A HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH · 2023 to 2025
$1.3M
FDA HHS U01 FD007929NIAMS NIH HHS R01 AR080193NIGMS NIH HHS R01 GM148494NLM NIH HHS R01 LM013614
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Federated learning of causal estimands may greatly improve estimation efficiency by leveraging data from multiple study sites, but robustness to heterogeneity and model misspecifications is vital for ensuring validity. We develop a Federated Adaptive Causal Estimation (FACE) framework to incorporate heterogeneous data from multiple sites to provide treatment effect estimation and inference for a flexibly specified target population of interest. FACE accounts for site-level heterogeneity in the distribution of covariates through density ratio weighting. To safely incorporate source sites and avoid negative transfer, we introduce an adaptive weighting procedure via a penalized regression, which achieves both consistency and optimal efficiency. Our strategy is communication-efficient and privacy-preserving, allowing participating sites to share summary statistics only once with other sites. We conduct both theoretical and numerical evaluations of FACE and apply it to conduct a comparative effectiveness study of BNT162b2 (Pfizer) and mRNA-1273 (Moderna) vaccines on COVID-19 outcomes in U.S. veterans using electronic health records from five VA regional sites. We show that compared to traditional methods, FACE meaningfully increases the precision of treatment effect estimates, with reductions in standard errors ranging from 26% to 67%.

Indexed as

Adaptive weightingCOVID-19Doubly robustFederated learningInfluence function

Identifiers

PMID40895281
PMCPMC12396575

What Socratic holds

Textmetadata
LicenceTDM
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.