Version info: Code for this page was tested in Mplus version 6.12.
Zero-truncated negative binomial regression is used to model count data for which the value zero cannot occur and when there is evidence of over dispersion .
Please Note: The purpose of this page is to show how to use various data analysis commands. It does not cover all aspects of the research process which researchers are expected to do. In particular, it does not cover data cleaning and verification, verification of assumptions, model diagnostics and potential follow-up analyses.
Examples of zero-truncated negative binomial
Example 1.
A study of the length of hospital stay, in days, as a function of age, kind of health insurance and whether or not the patient died while in the hospital. Length of hospital stay is recorded as a minimum of at least one day.
Example 2.
A study of the number of journal articles published by tenured faculty as a function of discipline (fine arts, science, social science, humanities, medical, etc). To get tenure faculty must publish, i.e., there are no tenured faculty with zero publications.
Example 3.
A study by the county traffic court on the number of tickets received by teenagers as predicted by school performance, amount of driver training and gender. Only individuals who have received at least one citation are in the traffic court files.
Description of the data
Let’s pursue Example 1 from above.
We have a hypothetical data file available here with 1,493 observations.
The variable describing length of hospital visit is stay
Let’s look at the data.
Data:
File is C:ztnb.dat;
Variable:
Names are
stay age hmo died;
Missing are all (-9999) ;
Analysis:
Type = basic ;
Plot:
Type = plot1;
ESTIMATED SAMPLE STATISTICS
Means
STAY AGE HMO DIED
________ ________ ________ ________
1 9.729 5.234 0.160 0.343
Covariances
STAY AGE HMO DIED
________ ________ ________ ________
STAY 66.100
AGE -0.615 2.785
HMO -0.169 -0.006 0.134
DIED -0.447 0.121 0.000 0.225
Correlations
STAY AGE HMO DIED
________ ________ ________ ________
STAY 1.000
AGE -0.045 1.000
HMO -0.057 -0.010 1.000
DIED -0.116 0.152 0.000 1.000
Analysis methods you might consider
Before we show how you can analyze these data with a zero-truncated negative binomial analysis, let’s consider some other methods that you might use.
- Zero-truncated Negative Binomial Regression – The focus of this web page.
- Zero-truncated Poisson Regression – Useful if there is no overdispersion in the zero truncated variable. Currently, zero-truncated poisson models are not possible in Mplus.
- Negative Binomial Regression – Ordinary negative binomial regression will have difficulty with zero-truncated data. It will try to predict zero counts even though there are no zero values.
- Poisson Regression – The same concerns as for negative binomial regression, namely, ordinary poisson regression will have difficulty with zero-truncated data. It will try to predict zero counts even though there are no zero values.
- OLS Regression – You could try to analyze these data using OLS regression. However, count data are highly non-normal and are not well estimated by OLS regression.
Zero-trunacated negative binomial regression
In the syntax below, we have indicated that stay is a count variable by using the count statement. The (nbt) option is used to indicate 2 things: that we are modeling our count variable with a negative binomial distribution, and that we are specifying a zero-truncated model. Without the (t) option we would be estimating a negative binomial model without zero-truncation. Also, we do not need a usevariables statement because we are using all of the variables in the data set in the current model. We have omitted the missing statement because we have no missing data in this data set. The default estimation method is MLR – maximum likelihood parameter estimates with standard errors and a chi-square test statistic that are robust to non-normality and non-independence of observations. The MLR standard errors are computed using a sandwich estimator. This is what we generally call robust standard errors. To get the "regular" standard errors, we use the estimator = ml on the analysis statement. (In the next example, we will omit the analysis statement and obtain the robust standard errors.) Our regression equations is specified in the model statement: we are predicting length of stay using age, hmo status and whether the patient died.
Data:
File is C:ztnb.dat ;
Variable:
Names = stay age hmo died;
Count = stay(nbt);
Model:
stay on age hmo died;
MODEL FIT INFORMATION
Number of Free Parameters 5
Loglikelihood
H0 Value -4755.280
H0 Scaling Correction Factor 1.156
for MLR
Information Criteria
Akaike (AIC) 9520.559
Bayesian (BIC) 9547.102
Sample-Size Adjusted BIC 9531.218
(n* = (n + 2) / 24)
MODEL RESULTS
Two-Tailed
Estimate S.E. Est./S.E. P-Value
STAY ON
AGE -0.016 0.013 -1.194 0.233
HMO -0.147 0.057 -2.571 0.010
DIED -0.218 0.053 -4.142 0.000
Intercepts
STAY 2.408 0.075 32.039 0.000
Dispersion
STAY 0.566 0.037 15.316 0.000
In the MODEL FIT INFORMATION portion of the output, you will find the log likelihood for the final model as well as a number of fit statistics. In the MODEL RESULTS section of the output you will find the negative binomial regression coefficients (estimates) for each of the variables, standard errors and the ratio of the estimate to its standard error. This can be used as a Z test, where values greater than 2 are considered to be statistically significant. We see that hmo and died but not age are significant predictors of stay. Thus, for example, for patients who use HMO services compared to those who do not, the log count of days stayed is about 0.147 less.
Now let’s rerun the model without the analysis: estimator = ml statement in order to obtain robust standard errors.
Data:
File is C:ztnb.dat ;
Variable:
Names = stay age hmo died;
Missing = all (-9999) ;
Count = stay(nbt);
Model:
stay on age hmo died;
Analysis:
estimator = ml;
MODEL RESULTS
Two-Tailed
Estimate S.E. Est./S.E. P-Value
STAY ON
AGE -0.016 0.013 -1.197 0.231
HMO -0.147 0.059 -2.483 0.013
DIED -0.218 0.046 -4.718 0.000
Intercepts
STAY 2.408 0.072 33.457 0.000
Dispersion
STAY 0.566 0.031 18.132 0.000
Robust standard errors tend to be larger than "regular" standard errors, though not always as we see for the variable age. The results changed very little when using regular standard errors.
Things to consider
- Count data often use an exposure variable to indicate the number of times the event could have happened. You can incorporate exposure into your model by using the exposure() option.
- It is not recommended that zero-truncated negative binomial models be applied to small samples. What constitutes a small sample does not seem to be clearly defined in the literature.
- Pseudo-R-squared values differ from OLS R-squareds, please see FAQ: What are pseudo R-squareds? for a discussion on this issue.
References
- Long, J. Scott (1997). Regression Models for Categorical and Limited Dependent Variables. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
- Hilbe, J. M. (2007). Negative binomial regression. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.