Hi Rod et al- 
The within-imputation variance is just the mean of the variances from the M
imputed data sets, but Rubin(1987) also gives a formula for the
between-imputation variance for the estimate as the variance of the
estimates . . ie if your point estimate of interest is Q and you've
calculated Qbar as the mean of the M different Q's, the between imputation
variance B is  1/(M-1)* sum(Q-Qbar)^2 . . then the total variance associated
with Qbar is the average variance estimate plus (1+ 1/M)*B . . .

Although personally I just use SAS's MIanalyze to do all that stuff.  But my
question - if you're reporting full imputed values, why give the standard
deviations, which are too low, instead of the standard errors, which include
all the error?

Thanks!
-Venita

> ----------
> From:         Rod Little[SMTP:[email protected]]
> Sent:         Friday, October 22, 2004 9:18 AM
> To:   Howells, William
> Cc:   DePuy, Venita; Balasubramani, G.K. ; [email protected]
> Subject:      RE: [Impute] Multiply Imputation - Descriptive Stats
> 
> If you want to report the means and standard deviations, you can just 
> average the means and standard deviations from the M imputed data sets. 
> This is more efficient than reporting values for one data set, and 
> averaging the imputes before computing the statistics will lead to an 
> underestimate of the standard deviation (as when conditional means are 
> imputed). Rod
> 
>   On Thu, 21 Oct 2004, Howells, William wrote:
> 
> > We've wondered about this ourselves and I haven't seen it covered in any
> > text.  We also opted for reporting baseline stats on unimputed data
> > because our missing data is mainly in one predictor variable, and
> > indicate the observed n in a footnote or the table itself.  Bill
> > Howells, Wash U Med School, St Louis
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: [email protected]
> > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of DePuy,
> > Venita
> > Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2004 11:19 AM
> > To: 'Balasubramani, G.K. '; ''[email protected]' '
> > Subject: RE: [Impute] Multiply Imputation - Descriptive Stats
> >
> > Hi Bala et al -
> >
> > In the varous MI papers we work on in my group, we typically provide
> > baseline descriptive stats for the unimputed group.  If that is not an
> > option, consider using either the first imputed sample or the overall
> > imputated values.  The overall MI mean for a value is merely the mean of
> > the
> > 5 (or however many) means, one from each dataset.
> >
> > However, you typically want to reporta measure of variance.  For the
> > unimputed or 1st imputed sample method, you can just use std dev.  For
> > the
> > overall imputed values, you need to use standard errors.
> >
> > Personally, I prefer using unimputed for the baseline descriptives and
> > full
> > imputation values in subsequent analyses . . . but I would say the main
> > deciding factor is the amount of missingness in your data.  If it's very
> > large, you will probably want to use imputed values.
> >
> > Hope this helps!
> > Venita
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Balasubramani, G.K.
> > To: '[email protected]'
> > Sent: 10/21/2004 12:05 PM
> > Subject: [Impute] Multiply Imputation - Descriptive Stats
> >
> > Hello all,
> >
> >
> >
> > This is a basic question in relation to imputation. That is, the imputed
> > data is an outcome variable, which is Hamilton depression rating scale.
> > I am using the threshold to create an indicator of remission or not
> > remission. After I imputed the data (say for 5 times) , how do I show
> > the descriptive statistics?  That is, the percentage with remission when
> > data include imputed values.  (Ex. Sex with remission , Employment
> > status with remission, etc..). Can I take the mean of the 5 imputed data
> > sets to create the indicator variable for remission? Is there any other
> > way to present the descriptive using the imputed data?
> >
> >
> >
> > Thanks in advance.
> >
> >
> >
> > Bala
> >
> > <<ATT93287.txt>>
> >
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> >
> >
> >
> 
> __________________________________________________________________________
> _________
> Roderick Little
> Richard D. Remington Collegiate Professor of Biostatistics 
> U-M School of Public Health                 Tel (734) 936 1003
> M4045 SPH II                                Fax (734) 763 2215 
> 1420 Washington Hgts                        email [email protected]
> Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2029             http://www.sph.umich.edu/~rlittle/
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