This notebook follows the famous example from Causality (Pearl, 2009).

In [1]:

from IPython.display import display, Math, Latex

import pyAgrum as gum
import pyAgrum.lib.notebook as gnb
import pyAgrum.causal as csl
import pyAgrum.causal.notebook as cslnb


In a statistical study about a drug, we try to evaluate the latter’s efficiency among a population of men and women. Let’s note: - $$Drug$$ : drug taking - $$Patient$$ : cured patient - $$Gender$$ : patient’s gender

The model from the observed date is as follow :

In [2]:

m1 = gum.fastBN("Gender{F|M}->Drug{Without|With}->Patient{Sick|Healed}<-Gender")

m1.cpt("Gender")[:]=[0.5,0.5]
m1.cpt("Drug")[:]=[[0.25,0.75],  #Gender=F
[0.75,0.25]]  #Gender=M

m1.cpt("Patient")[{'Drug':'Without','Gender':'F'}]=[0.2,0.8] #No Drug, Male -> healed in 0.8 of cases
m1.cpt("Patient")[{'Drug':'Without','Gender':'M'}]=[0.6,0.4] #No Drug, Female -> healed in 0.4 of cases
m1.cpt("Patient")[{'Drug':'With','Gender':'F'}]=[0.3,0.7] #Drug, Male -> healed 0.7 of cases
m1.cpt("Patient")[{'Drug':'With','Gender':'M'}]=[0.8,0.2] #Drug, Female -> healed in 0.2 of cases
gnb.flow.row(m1,m1.cpt("Gender"),m1.cpt("Drug"),m1.cpt("Patient"))

Gender
F
M
0.50000.5000
Drug
Gender
Without
With
F
0.25000.7500
M
0.75000.2500
Patient
Gender
Drug
Sick
Healed
F
Without
0.20000.8000
With
0.30000.7000
M
Without
0.60000.4000
With
0.80000.2000
In [3]:

def getCuredObservedProba(m1,evs):
evs0=dict(evs)
evs1=dict(evs)
evs0["Drug"]='Without'
evs1["Drug"]='With'

gum.getPosterior(m1,target="Patient",evs=evs0)[1],
gum.getPosterior(m1,target="Patient",evs=evs1)[1]
])

gnb.sideBySide(getCuredObservedProba(m1,{}),
getCuredObservedProba(m1,{'Gender':'F'}),
getCuredObservedProba(m1,{'Gender':'M'}),
captions=["$P(Patient = Healed \mid Drug )$<br/>Taking $Drug$ is observed as efficient to cure",
"$P(Patient = Healed \mid Gender=F,Drug)$<br/>except if the $gender$ of the patient is female",
"$P(Patient = Healed \mid Gender=M,Drug)$<br/>... or male."])

Drug
Without
With
0.50000.5750

$P(Patient = Healed \mid Drug )$
Taking $Drug$ is observed as efficient to cure
Drug
Without
With
0.80000.7000

$P(Patient = Healed \mid Gender=F,Drug)$
except if the $gender$ of the patient is female
Drug
Without
With
0.40000.2000

$P(Patient = Healed \mid Gender=M,Drug)$
... or male.

$P(C\mid \neg{D}) = 0.5 < P(C\mid D) = 0.575$
$P(C\mid \neg{D},G = Male) = 0.8 > P(C\mid D,G = Male) = 0.7$
$P(C\mid \neg{D},G = Female) = 0.4 > P(C\mid D,G = Female) = 0.2$

Actuallay, giving a drug is not an observation in our model but rather an intervention. What if we use intervention instead of observation ?

## How to compute causal impacts on the patient’s health ?¶

We propose this causal model.

In [4]:

d1 = csl.CausalModel(m1)
cslnb.showCausalModel(d1)


### Computing $$P (Patient = Healed \mid \hookrightarrow Drug = Without)$$¶

In [5]:

cslnb.showCausalImpact(d1, "Patient", doing="Drug",values={"Drug" : "Without"})


Causal Model
$$\begin{equation*}P( Patient \mid \hookrightarrow\mkern-6.5muDrug) = \sum_{Gender}{P\left(Patient\mid Drug,Gender\right) \cdot P\left(Gender\right)}\end{equation*}$$
Explanation : backdoor ['Gender'] found.
Patient
Sick
Healed
0.40000.6000

Impact

We have, $$P (Patient = Healed \mid \hookrightarrow Drug = without) = 0.6$$

### Computing $$P (Patient = Healed \mid \hookrightarrow Drug = With )$$¶

In [6]:

d1 = csl.CausalModel(m1)
cslnb.showCausalImpact(d1, "Patient", "Drug",values={"Drug" : "With"})


Causal Model
$$\begin{equation*}P( Patient \mid \hookrightarrow\mkern-6.5muDrug) = \sum_{Gender}{P\left(Patient\mid Drug,Gender\right) \cdot P\left(Gender\right)}\end{equation*}$$
Explanation : backdoor ['Gender'] found.
Patient
Sick
Healed
0.55000.4500

Impact

And then : $P(Patient = Healed \mid :nbsphinx-math:hookrightarrow Drug = With ) = 0.45$

Therefore : $P(Patient = Healed:nbsphinx-math:mid :nbsphinx-math:hookrightarrow Drug = Without) = 0.6 > P(Patient = Healed:nbsphinx-math:mid :nbsphinx-math:hookrightarrow Drug = With) = 0.45$

Which means that taking this drug would not enhance the patient’s healing process, and it is better not to prescribe this drug for treatment.

## Simpson paradox solved by interventions¶

So to summarize, the paradox appears when wrongly dealing with observations on $$Drug$$ :

In [7]:

gnb.sideBySide(getCuredObservedProba(m1,{}),
getCuredObservedProba(m1,{'Gender':'F'}),
getCuredObservedProba(m1,{'Gender':'M'}),
captions=["$P(Patient = Healed \mid Drug )$<br/>Taking $Drug$ is observed as efficient to cure",
"$P(Patient = Healed \mid Gender=F,Drug)$<br/>except if the $gender$ of the patient is female",
"$P(Patient = Healed \mid Gender=M,Drug)$<br/>... or male."])

Drug
Without
With
0.50000.5750

$P(Patient = Healed \mid Drug )$
Taking $Drug$ is observed as efficient to cure
Drug
Without
With
0.80000.7000

$P(Patient = Healed \mid Gender=F,Drug)$
except if the $gender$ of the patient is female
Drug
Without
With
0.40000.2000

$P(Patient = Healed \mid Gender=M,Drug)$
... or male.

… and disappears when dealing with intervention on $$Drug$$ :

In [8]:

gnb.sideBySide(csl.causalImpact(d1,on="Patient",doing="Drug",values={"Patient":"Healed"})[1],
csl.causalImpact(d1,on="Patient",doing="Drug",knowing={"Gender"},values={"Patient":"Healed","Gender":"F"})[1],
csl.causalImpact(d1,on="Patient",doing="Drug",knowing={"Gender"},values={"Patient":"Healed","Gender":"M"})[1],
captions=["$P(Patient = 1 \mid \hookrightarrow Drug )$<br/>Effectively $Drug$ taking is not efficient to cure",
"$P(Patient = 1 \mid \hookrightarrow Drug, gender=F )$<br/>, the $gender$ of the patient being female",
"$P(Patient = 1 \mid \hookrightarrow Drug, gender=M )$<br/>, ... or male."])

Drug
Without
With
0.60000.4500

$P(Patient = 1 \mid \hookrightarrow Drug )$
Effectively $Drug$ taking is not efficient to cure
Drug
Without
With
0.80000.7000

$P(Patient = 1 \mid \hookrightarrow Drug, gender=F )$
, the $gender$ of the patient being female
Drug
Without
With
0.40000.2000

$P(Patient = 1 \mid \hookrightarrow Drug, gender=M )$
, ... or male.
In [ ]: