On the Effects of Spatial Confounding in Hierarchical Models

Widemberg S. Nobre, Alexandra M. Schmidt and João B. M. Pereira

International Statistical Review, 2021, vol. 89, issue 2, 302-322

Abstract: Usually, in spatial generalised linear models, covariates that are spatially smooth are collinear with spatial random effects. This affects the bias and precision of the regression coefficients. This is known in the spatial statistics literature as spatial confounding. We discuss the problem of confounding in the case of multilevel spatial models wherein there are multiple observations within clusters. We show that even under the standard multilevel model, which allows for independent (i.e. not spatially correlated) cluster effects, the cluster‐level fixed effects might be biased depending on the structure of the ‘true’ generating mechanism of the processes. We provide simulation studies in order to investigate the effects of confounding in the estimation of fixed effects present in random intercept models under different scenarios of confounding. One remedy to spatial confounding is restricted spatial regression wherein the spatial random effects are constrained to be orthogonal to the fixed effects of the model. We propose one way to fit a restricted spatial regression model for multilevel data and illustrate it with artificial data analyses. We also briefly describe the issue of confounding in random intercept and slope models.

Date: 2021
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