Two-phase analysis and study design for survival models with error-prone exposures

Abstract

Increasingly, medical research is dependent on data collected for non-research purposes, such as electronic health records data. Health records data and other large databases can be prone to measurement error in key exposures, and unadjusted analyses of error-prone data can bias study results. Validating a subset of records is a cost-effective way of gaining information on the error structure, which in turn can be used to adjust analyses for this error and improve inference. We extend the mean score method for the two-phase analysis of discrete-time survival models, which uses the unvalidated covariates as auxiliary variables that act as surrogates for the unobserved true exposures. This method relies on a two-phase sampling design and an estimation approach that preserves the consistency of complete case regression parameter estimates in the validated subset, with increased precision leveraged from the auxiliary data. Furthermore, we develop optimal sampling strategies which minimize the variance of the mean score estimator for a target exposure under a fixed cost constraint. We consider the setting where an internal pilot is necessary for the optimal design so that the phase two sample is split into a pilot and an adaptive optimal sample. Through simulations and data example, we evaluate efficiency gains of the mean score estimator using the derived optimal validation design compared to balanced and simple random sampling for the phase two sample. We also empirically explore efficiency gains that the proposed discrete optimal design can provide for the Cox proportional hazards model in the setting of a continuous-time survival outcome.