PreprintCC BY-NC-ND 4.0arXiv
The Effect of Residual Confounding in the Analysis of Large Observational Data Sets
Abstract
We review how residual confounding in large observational data sets can mistakenly lead researchers to declare a predictor variable statistically significant. As sample sizes become very large, standard errors decrease dramatically, causing unmeasured variables correlated with the predictor of interest to overwhelm the model and yield precise estimates of the wrong thing, the residual confounder. Three examples from environmental epidemiology are provided. Specification Curve Analysis, SCA, and Local Control Analysis, LCA, are offered to reveal model selection bias and true null effects.
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BibTeX
@misc{young2026effect,
title = {{The Effect of Residual Confounding in the Analysis of Large Observational Data Sets}},
author = {S. Stanley Young and Warren B. Kindzierski},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.34648},
eprint = {2610.34648},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.34648},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - The Effect of Residual Confounding in the Analysis of Large Observational Data Sets
AU - S. Stanley Young
AU - Warren B. Kindzierski
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/26
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.34648
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.34648
AB - We review how residual confounding in large observational data sets can mistakenly lead researchers to declare a predictor variable statistically significant. As sample sizes become very large, standard errors decrease dramatically, causing unmeasured variables correlated with the predictor of interest to overwhelm the model and yield precise estimates of the wrong thing, the residual confounder. Three examples from environmental epidemiology are provided. Specification Curve Analysis, SCA, and Local Control Analysis, LCA, are offered to reveal model selection bias and true null effects.
ER -