Modified treatment policies that depend on the natural history of treatment

Abstract: Longitudinal modified treatment policies (LMTP) are a class of interventions that allow the definition, identification, and estimation of causal effects in general settings, such as with continuous or multivariate exposures, treatment regimens that require grace periods. Targeted machine learning estimators (i.e., double/debiased) have been formulated for LMTPs that assign the exposure at time $t$ as a function of the natural value of treatment at time $t$. However, important applications such as estimating the effect of a delay in the start of a treatment require formulating LMTPs that depend not only on the natural value of treatment at time $t$ but also on the \textit{history} of the natural value of treatment prior to time $t$. This paper develops targeted learning estimators for this general case. We discuss the definition of the effects, and propose estimators that use an augmented-data version of the sequential regression form of the longitudinal g-computation formula. Our estimators are based on the efficient influence function and provide $\sqrt{n}$ inference under standard doubly robust rate assumptions on the convergence of the outcome and treatment regressions. We apply the new estimators to assess the effect of delaying a risky pain treatment by one month on 12-month incidence of opioid use disorder.