Lanza Stephanie T, Tan Xianming, Bray Bethany C
The Methodology Center, The Pennsylvania State University ; College of Health and Human Development, The Pennsylvania State University.
The Methodology Center, The Pennsylvania State University.
Struct Equ Modeling. 2013 Jan;20(1):1-26. doi: 10.1080/10705511.2013.742377.
Although prediction of class membership from observed variables in latent class analysis is well understood, predicting an observed distal outcome from latent class membership is more complicated. A flexible model-based approach is proposed to empirically derive and summarize the class-dependent density functions of distal outcomes with categorical, continuous, or count distributions. A Monte Carlo simulation study is conducted to compare the performance of the new technique to two commonly used classify-analyze techniques: maximum-probability assignment and multiple pseudo-class draws. Simulation results show that the model-based approach produces substantially less biased estimates of the effect compared to either classify-analyze technique, particularly when the association between the latent class variable and the distal outcome is strong. In addition, we show that only the model-based approach is consistent. The approach is demonstrated empirically: latent classes of adolescent depression are used to predict smoking, grades, and delinquency. SAS syntax for implementing this approach using PROC LCA and a corresponding macro are provided.
尽管在潜在类别分析中从观测变量预测类别归属已得到充分理解,但从潜在类别归属预测观测到的远端结果则更为复杂。本文提出了一种基于灵活模型的方法,以经验性地推导和总结具有分类、连续或计数分布的远端结果的类别依赖密度函数。进行了一项蒙特卡罗模拟研究,以比较这种新技术与两种常用的分类 - 分析技术:最大概率赋值和多个伪类别抽取的性能。模拟结果表明,与任何一种分类 - 分析技术相比,基于模型的方法在效应估计上的偏差要小得多,特别是当潜在类别变量与远端结果之间的关联很强时。此外,我们表明只有基于模型的方法是一致的。通过实证展示了该方法:利用青少年抑郁症的潜在类别来预测吸烟、成绩和犯罪行为。提供了使用PROC LCA和相应宏来实现此方法的SAS语法。