The MRTAnalysis package provides functions to conduct post-study analyses of Micro-Randomized Trials (MRTs), focusing on estimating causal excursion effects.
wcls()
: Primary analysis for continuous proximal
outcomes. Implements weighted and centered least squares (the \(k=1\) special case of Boruvka et al.,
2018).emee()
: Primary analysis for binary proximal outcomes.
Implements the estimator for marginal excursion effect (the \(\Delta=1\) special case of Qian et al.,
2021).emee2()
: Variant of emee()
, centering
treatment in the residual term. Basis for the sample size calculator in
MRTSampleSizeBinary
.dcee()
: Exploratory analysis for distal causal
excursion effects in MRTs (Qian et al. 2025). Supports linear models and
machine-learning learners (lm, gam, random forest, ranger, SuperLearner)
with optional cross-fitting.You can install the package from CRAN:
install.packages("MRTAnalysis")
See vignettes for detailed examples:
library(MRTAnalysis)
# Proximal outcome analysis (continuous)
<- wcls(
fit1 data = data_mimicHeartSteps,
id = "userid", outcome = "logstep_30min",
treatment = "intervention", rand_prob = 0.6,
moderator_formula = ~1,
control_formula = ~logstep_pre30min,
availability = "avail"
)summary(fit1)
# Distal outcome analysis
<- dcee(
fit2 data = data_distal_continuous,
id = "userid", outcome = "Y",
treatment = "A", rand_prob = "prob_A",
moderator_formula = ~1,
control_formula = ~X,
availability = "avail",
control_reg_method = "lm"
)summary(fit2)
Boruvka, A., Almirall, D., Witkiewitz, K., & Murphy, S. A. (2018). Assessing time-varying causal effect moderation in mobile health. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 113(523), 1112–1121. doi:10.1080/01621459.2017.1305274
Qian, T., Yoo, H., Klasnja, P., Almirall, D., & Murphy, S. A. (2021). Estimating time-varying causal excursion effects in mobile health with binary outcomes. Biometrika, 108(3), 507–527. doi:10.1093/biomet/asaa070
Qian, T. (2025). Distal Causal Excursion Effects: Modeling Long-Term Effects of Time-Varying Treatments in Micro-Randomized Trials. arXiv:2502.13500.