Searching for causes of necrotising enterocolitis. An application of propensity matching
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Longford, NT
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Necrotising enterocolitis (NEC) is a disease of the gastrointestinal tract afflicting preterm-born infants in the first few weeks of their lives. We estimate the effect of changing the feeding regimen of infants in their first 14 postnatal days by analysing the data from the UK National Neonatal Research Database. We avoid some problems with drawing causal inferences from observational data by reducing the analysis to the infants who spent the first 14 postnatal days (or longer) in neonatal care and for whom NEC was not suspected in this period. This reduction enables us to use summaries of the feeding regimen in this period as background variables in a potential outcomes framework. Large size of the cohort is a distinct advantage of our study. Its results inform the design of a randomised clinical trial for preventing NEC, and the choice of its active treatment(s) in particular.
Date Issued
2018-03-01
Date Acceptance
2018-02-14
Citation
Statistics in Transition new series, 2018, 19 (1)
ISSN
1234-7655
Publisher
Polish Statistical Association
Journal / Book Title
Statistics in Transition new series
Volume
19
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
Copyright 2018 by Exeley Inc. This paper is available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Subjects
0104 Statistics
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2018-05-27