Deep Doubly Debiased Longitudinal Effect Estimation with ICE G-Computation.

TitleDeep Doubly Debiased Longitudinal Effect Estimation with ICE G-Computation.
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2026
AuthorsChen W, Pan W, Gan K, Wang F
JournalKDD
Volume2026
Issuev2
Pagination10646-10657
Date Published2026
ISSN2154-817X
Abstract

Estimating longitudinal treatment effects is essential for sequential decision-making but is challenging due to treatment-confounder feedback. While Iterative Conditional Expectation (ICE) G-computation offers a principled approach, its recursive structure suffers from error propagation, corrupting the learned outcome regression models. We propose D 3 -Net, a framework that mitigates error propagation in ICE training and then applies a robust final correction. First, to interrupt error propagation during learning, we train the ICE sequence using Sequential Doubly Robust (SDR) pseudo-outcomes, which provide bias-corrected targets for each regression. Second, we employ a multi-task transformer with a covariate simulator head for auxiliary supervision, regularizing representation learning, and a target network to stabilize training dynamics. For the final estimate, we discard the SDR correction and instead use the uncorrected nuisance models to perform Longitudinal Targeted Minimum Loss-Based Estimation (LTMLE) on the original outcomes. This second-stage, targeted debiasing ensures robustness and optimal finite-sample properties. Comprehensive experiments demonstrate that our model, -Net, robustly reduces bias and variance across different horizons, counterfactuals, and time-varying confoundings, compared to existing state-of-the-art ICE-based estimators.

DOI10.1145/3770855.3818925
Alternate JournalKDD
PubMed ID42861371
PubMed Central IDPMC13654504
Grant ListRF1 AG084178 / AG / NIA NIH HHS / United States
R01 AG080624 / AG / NIA NIH HHS / United States
R01 AG072449 / AG / NIA NIH HHS / United States
R01 NS140142 / NS / NINDS NIH HHS / United States
R01 AG076234 / AG / NIA NIH HHS / United States
RF1 AG072449 / AG / NIA NIH HHS / United States
R01 AG076448 / AG / NIA NIH HHS / United States
R01 AG080991 / AG / NIA NIH HHS / United States
Division: 
Institute of Artificial Intelligence for Digital Health
Category: 
Faculty Publication