Selected Publications

The impact of job stability on monetary poverty in Italy: causal small area estimation

Katarzyna Reluga
Mark van der Laan, Ph.D.
2025

Job stability – encompassing secure contracts, adequate wages, social benefits, and career opportunities – is a critical determinant in reducing monetary poverty, as it provides households with reliable income and enhances economic well-being. This study leverages EU-SILC survey and census data to estimate the causal effect of job stability on monetary poverty across Italian provinces, quantifying its influence and analyzing regional disparities. We introduce a novel causal small area estimation (CSAE) framework that integrates global and local estimation strategies for heterogeneous...

Deep Causal Behavioral Policy Learning: Applications to Healthcare

Jonas Knecht
Maya Petersen, M.D. Ph.D.
2025

We present a deep learning-based approach to studying dynamic clinical behavioral regimes in diverse non-randomized healthcare settings. Our proposed methodology - deep causal behavioral policy learning (DC-BPL) - uses deep learning algorithms to learn the distribution of high-dimensional clinical action paths, and identifies the causal link between these action paths and patient outcomes. Specifically, our approach: (1) identifies the causal effects of provider assignment on clinical outcomes; (2) learns the distribution of clinical actions a given provider would take given evolving...

Maternal experience of intimate partner violence, maternal depression, and parental stress are not associated with child telomere length in Bangladesh

Diego Figueroa
Zach Butzin-Dozier, Ph.D.
Andrew Mertens, Ph.D.
Alan Hubbard, Ph.D.
2025

Shorter telomere length (TL) is associated with an increased risk for developing chronic or age-related diseases in adults. The process of telomere shortening is accelerated in response to stress and is well characterized in adult populations from high-income countries. Prior studies suggest the relationship between stress, shorter TL, and disease risk initiates in early life. Nested within the WASH Benefits Bangladesh trial, we examined associations between parental stressors, including maternal exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV), maternal depressive symptoms, and parental...

Estimation and Evaluation of the Resource-Constrained Optimal Dynamic Treatment Rule: An Application to HIV Care Retention

Lina M. Montoya
Maya Petersen, M.D. Ph.D.
2025

The optimal strategy for deploying a treatment in a population may recommend giving all in the population that treatment. Such a strategy may not be feasible, especially in resource-limited settings. One approach for determining how to allocate a treatment in such settings is the resource-constrained optimal dynamic treatment rule (RC ODTR) SuperLearner algorithm, developed by Luedtke and van der Laan. In this paper, we describe this algorithm, offer various novel approaches for presenting the RC ODTR and its value in terms of benefit and cost, and provide practical guidance on...

Treatment Heterogeneity of Water, Sanitation, Hygiene, and Nutrition Interventions on Child Growth by Environmental Enteric Dysfunction and Pathogen Status for Young Children in Bangladesh

Zach Butzin-Dozier, Ph.D.
Yunwen Ji
Jeremy Coyle Ph.D.
Ivana Malenica
Jack Colford
Alan Hubbard, Ph.D.
Andrew Mertens, Ph.D.
2025

Background:
Water, sanitation, hygiene (WSH), nutrition (N), and combined (N+WSH) interventions are often implemented by global health organizations, but WSH interventions may insufficiently reduce pathogen exposure, and nutrition interventions may be modified by environmental enteric dysfunction (EED), a condition of increased intestinal permeability and inflammation. This study investigated the heterogeneity of these treatments’ effects based on individual pathogen and EED biomarker status with respect to child linear growth.

Methods:
We applied cross-validated targeted...