TY - JOUR T1 - A Deep Learning Semiparametric Regression for Adjusting Complex Confounding Structures JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/2020.06.08.140418 SP - 2020.06.08.140418 AU - Xinlei Mi AU - Patrick Tighe AU - Fei Zou AU - Baiming Zou Y1 - 2020/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/06/09/2020.06.08.140418.abstract N2 - Deep Treatment Learning (deepTL), a robust yet efficient deep learning-based semiparametric regression approach, is proposed to adjust the complex confounding structures in comparative effectiveness analysis of observational data, e.g. electronic health record (EHR) data, in which complex confounding structures are often embedded. Specifically, we develop a deep learning neural network with a score-based ensembling scheme for flexible function approximation. An improved semiparametric procedure is further developed to enhance the performance of the proposed method under finite sample settings. Comprehensive numerical studies have demonstrated the superior performance of the proposed methods as compared with existing methods, with a remarkably reduced bias and mean squared error in parameter estimates. The proposed research is motivated by a post-surgery pain study, which is also used to illustrate the practical application of deepTL. Finally, an R package, “deepTL”, is developed to implement the proposed method.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. ER -