Robust inference for matching under rolling enrollment

Abstract

Matching in observational studies faces complications when units enroll in treatment on a rolling basis. While each treated unit has a specific time of entry into the study, control units each have many possible comparison, or "pseudo-treatment," times. The recent GroupMatch framework (Pimentel et al., 2020) solves this problem by searching over all possible pseudo-treatment times for each control and selecting those permitting the closest matches based on covariate histories. However, valid methods of inference have been described only for special cases of the general GroupMatch design, and these rely on strong assumptions. We provide three important innovations to address these problems. First, we introduce a new design, GroupMatch with instance replacement, that allows additional flexibility in control selection and proves more amenable to analysis. Second, we propose a block bootstrap approach for inference in GroupMatch with instance replacement and demonstrate that it accounts properly for complex correlations across matched sets. Third, we develop a permutation-based falsification test to detect possible violations of the important timepoint agnosticism assumption underpinning GroupMatch, which requires homogeneity of potential outcome means across time. Via simulation and a case study of the impact of short-term injuries on batting performance in major league baseball, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our methods for data analysis in practice.