Usage for glca()
The main function of this package, called glca(), fits a
wide range of multiple-group latent class models including fixed-effect
and random-effect LCA in order to examine whether the latent structure
is identical across groups. The glca() function can be
called with
glca(formula, group, data, nclass, ncluster, std.err, measure.inv, coeff.inv,
init.param, n.init, decreasing, testiter, maxiter, eps,
na.rm, seed, verbose)The function glca() uses the formula expression in order
to specify a multiple-group latent class model. For example, suppose
there are four manifest items, Y1, Y2,
Y3, and Y4 in the dataset. These items must be
combined as item(Y1, Y2, Y3, Y4) and located on the left
hand side of the formula. Without any covariate, the formula definition
takes the form:
formula <- item(Y1, Y2, Y3, Y4) ~ 1The item can be specified by the prefix or suffix of the manifest items as follows:
formula <- item(starts.with = "Y") ~ 1Any covariate can be incorporated by replacing ~ 1 with
the desired function of covariates. For example, the npLCR with one
level-1 covariate (X1) and one level-2 covariate
(Z1) can be fitted using the following formula:
formula <- item(starts.with = "Y") ~ X1 + Z1It should be noted that glca() identifies the type of
covariates automatically. The function has following arguments:
| argument | description |
|---|---|
data |
The input data, data.frame or matrix, with
individuals in rows and group variable, level-1 and level-2 covariates,
and individuals’ responses to manifest items in the columns. The data
could con- tain multichotomous responses to manifest items. |
group |
Argument that indicates group variable which has the same length as
manifest items on the formula. If group = NULL (default),
standard LCA or LCR is fitted. |
nclass |
Integer scalar specifying the number of latent classes. In the
default setting, nclass = 3. |
ncluster |
Integer scalar specifying the number of latent clusters (default
ncluster = 0). |
std.err |
Logical value for whether calculating standard errors for estimates
(default std.err = TRUE). |
measure.inv |
Logical value for whether measurement invariance across groups is
assumed (default measure.inv = TRUE). |
coeff.inv |
Logical value for whether coefficients for level-1 covariates are
identical across groups or latent clusters (default
coeff.inv = TRUE). |
init.param |
A set of model parameters to be used as a user-specified initial
values for EM algorithm. It should be list with the named parameters and
have same structure of param of the glca() output. In
default, initial parameters are randomly generated (i.e., default
init.param = NULL). |
n.init |
Integer scalar specifying the number of randomly generated parameter
sets to be used as initial values for EM algorithm in order to avoid
local maxima problem (default n.init = 10). |
testiter |
Integer scalar specifying the number of iterations in EM algorithm
for each initial parameter set in order to select the best initial
parameter set. The initial parameter set that provides the largest
log-likelihood is selected for main iteration to estimate model
parameters (default testiter = 50). |
maxiter |
Integer scalar specifying the maximum number of iterations for EM
algorithm (default maxiter = 5000). |
eps |
A convergence tolerance value. When the largest absolute difference
between former estimates and current estimates is less than eps, EM
algorithm will stop updating and consider the convergence to be reached
(default eps = 1e-06). |
na.rm |
Logical value for whether the routine deletes the rows that have at
least one missing manifest item. If na.rm = FALSE
(default), FIML approach will be conducted under MAR condition. |
seed |
In default, the set of initial parameters is drawn randomly. As the same value for seed guarantees the same initial parameters to be drawn, this argument can be used for reproducibility of estimation results. |
verbose |
Logical value indicating whether glca() should print
the estimation procedure onto the screen (default
verbose = TRUE). |
The output of glca() is list or
data.frame that contains information for model
specification and results of the data analysis using the specified
model. The function glca() returns following
| output | description |
|---|---|
model |
A list containing information on the specified
multiple-group latent class models. |
var.names |
A list containing names of data. |
datalist |
A list of data used for fitting. |
param |
A list of parameter estimates. |
std.err |
A list of standard errors for param. |
coefficient |
A list of logistic regression coefficients for latent
class prevalences. |
gof |
A list of goodness-of-fit measures. |
convergence |
A list containing information on convergence. |
posterior |
For mgLCR, posterior is a data.frame of posterior
probabilities belonging to specific latent class for each individual.
For npLCR, posterior is a list containing three type of
posterior probabilities; probabilities of belonging to latent cluster
for each group, belonging to latent cluster for each latent class, and
belonging to latent class for each individual. |
For objects from the glca(), generic functions for
print(), summary(), coef(),
logLik(), reorder() and plot()
are available. The generic function print() can be accessed
with print(x) where x is an object from the
function glca(). This function is used to print information
from the object x to console. The function calls together with the names
of variable, model specification, the number of observations, and the
number of parameters used in the analysis.
The function summary() is a generic function that is
summarizing results from the glca(). The function can be
called via summary(x). The output of the
summary(x) has two main components; the first component
contains information on model specification, and the second component
contains parameter estimates.
Generic functions coef() and logLik() can
also be used. The estimates of regression coefficients and their
standard errors of the object x from the function
glca() will be extracted via coef(x). Odds
ratios,
-values,
and their respective
-values
for the estimated coefficient will also be extracted. The function
logLik() extracts log-likelihood and degree of freedom for
the model which enables to use other statistical R function such as
AIC() and BIC().
reorder() function can be used for glca for
reordering estimated parameters. Since the latent classes or clusters
can be switched according to the initial value of EM algorithm, the
order of estimated parameters can be arbitrary. For convenient
interpretation of estimated parameters, researchers desire to rearrange
the order of latent variables. The ordering can be designated by users
(class.order, cluster.order) and can be
determined by the magnitude of the probability of responding the first
manifest item with the first option.
A generic function for plotting parameter estimates of the specified
model is also available to the user. The user can plot parameters of the
object x with plot(x). This function returns
three types of plots: item-response probabilities, marginal class
prevalences, and class prevalences by group or cluster. The plot for
item-response probabilities has M manifest items on the
x-axis, the probability of responding to the
th
category for the
th
item on they-axis for
.
If there is a group variable with the argument measure.inv = FALSE in
the glca() function, separate plot for each group is
returned. The plot for marginal class prevalences has latent classes on
the x-axis, and the probability of belonging to the
respective latent class on the y axis. If there is a group variable,
additional plot is returned for displaying class prevalences for each
group (when mgLCR is fitted) or latent cluster (when npLCR is fitted).
This plot has levels of group or latent cluster variable on the
x-axis, and the conditional probability of belonging to
latent classes for each group or latent cluster on the
y-axis.
Usage for gofglca()
In multiple-group LCA, the first and fundamental step is to select
the appropriate number of latent classes and latent clusters. Once the
number of latent components are determined, the next step is to assess
relative model fit for exploring various group differences in latent
structure across groups or latent clusters. The assessment of model fit
described in Sections - is implemented into a function named
gofglca(). The function syntax is
gofglca(x, ..., criteria, test, nboot, maxiter, eps, seed, verbose)and uses following arguments.
| argument | description |
|---|---|
x |
An output of the glca() function. Absolute model fit
test will be conducted for the model specified in x. |
... |
An optional argument, one or more output objects of the function
glca(), which enables users to test for relative model fit.
Each of these optional objects will be compared to one of other objects,
which are specified in this argument. |
criteria |
A character vector specifying which type of information criteria
should be returned by the function. Default is to return all types of
criteria via
c("logLik", "AIC", "CAIC", "BIC", "entropy"). |
test |
String that controls which distribution to be used for calculating
p-value in hypothesis test. Available options are "NULL"
(default), "chisq" (chi-square distribution), and
"boot" (bootstrap empirical distribution). |
nboot |
The number of bootstrap samples to be generated when
test = "boot" (default nboot = 50). |
maxiter |
Integer scalar specifying the maximum number of EM iterations for
each of bootstrap samples (default maxiter = 500). |
eps |
A convergence tolerance value used in EM algorithm for each of
bootstrap samples (default eps = 1e-04). |
seed |
As the same value for seed guarantees the same datasets to be
generated, this argument can be used for reproducibility of bootstrap
results (default seed = NULL). |
verbose |
Logical value indicating whether gofglca() should print
the assessment procedure onto the screen (default
verbose = TRUE). |
The function gofglca() provides the table for analysis
of goodness-of-fit containing information criteria, residual degrees of
freedom,
-statistic,
and bootstrap
-value
for absolute model fit for the designated objects when
test = "boot". With optional objects from the function
glca(), gofglca() also provides the table for
analysis of deviance given that these objects share the same manifest
items. The table for analysis of deviance describes relative model fit
using the deviance statistic between two competing models and its
-value
using distribution specified in test argument.
Applications
Attitude toward abortion
The dataset gss08 taken from the 2008 General Social
Survey (Smith et al., 2010) includes six binary manifest items
measuring 355 respondents’ attitudes toward abortion following the
strategy suggested by McCutcheon, 1987. For each item, respondents were
asked whether abortion should be legalized under various circumstances:
a strong chance of serious defect in the baby (DEFECT),
pregnancy is seriously endangering the woman’s health
(HLTH), pregnancy as a result of rape (RAPE),
due to low income, the family cannot afford any more children
(POOR), woman is unmarried and has no plans to marry the
man (SINGLE), and woman is married but does not want more
children (NOMORE). Each item has two possible levels of
response (i.e., "YES" or "NO").
gss08 also include five covariates: AGE,
GENDER, RACE, DEGREE and
REGION of respondents. (?gss08)
data("gss08")
str(gss08)
#> 'data.frame': 355 obs. of 11 variables:
#> $ DEFECT: Factor w/ 2 levels "YES","NO": 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...
#> $ HLTH : Factor w/ 2 levels "YES","NO": 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...
#> $ RAPE : Factor w/ 2 levels "YES","NO": 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...
#> $ POOR : Factor w/ 2 levels "YES","NO": 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...
#> $ SINGLE: Factor w/ 2 levels "YES","NO": 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 NA 1 ...
#> $ NOMORE: Factor w/ 2 levels "YES","NO": 1 2 2 1 1 1 1 NA 1 1 ...
#> $ AGE : num 32 21 56 40 62 71 58 36 52 78 ...
#> $ SEX : Factor w/ 2 levels "MALE","FEMALE": 1 2 2 1 2 1 2 1 1 2 ...
#> $ RACE : Factor w/ 3 levels "WHITE","BLACK",..: 2 2 2 2 1 2 2 1 1 1 ...
#> $ DEGREE: Factor w/ 4 levels "<= HS","HIGH SCHOOL",..: 2 2 1 4 3 2 3 3 2 3 ...
#> $ REGION: Factor w/ 9 levels "NEW ENGLAND",..: 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 ...Selecting the number of latent classes: In the
first step of the analysis, we conduct a series of standard latent class
models to select a number of latent classes. The number of class in the
glca() function is set to 2, 3, or 4 as following commands.
It should be noted that we use 10 sets of randomly generated initial
parameters to avoid the problem of local maxima (i.e.,
n.init = 10), and the argument is set as
seed = 1 in the glca() function to ensure
reproductibility of results unless otherwise noted.
f <- item(DEFECT, HLTH, RAPE, POOR, SINGLE, NOMORE) ~ 1
lca2 <- glca(f, data = gss08, nclass = 2, seed = 1, verbose = FALSE)
lca3 <- glca(f, data = gss08, nclass = 3, seed = 1, verbose = FALSE)
lca4 <- glca(f, data = gss08, nclass = 4, seed = 1, verbose = FALSE)
gofglca(lca2, lca3, lca4, test = "boot", seed = 1)
#> Model 1: item(DEFECT, HLTH, RAPE, POOR, SINGLE, NOMORE) ~ 1
#> nclass: 2
#> Model 2: item(DEFECT, HLTH, RAPE, POOR, SINGLE, NOMORE) ~ 1
#> nclass: 3
#> Model 3: item(DEFECT, HLTH, RAPE, POOR, SINGLE, NOMORE) ~ 1
#> nclass: 4
#>
#> Goodness of Fit Table :
#> logLik AIC CAIC BIC entropy Res.Df Gsq Boot p-value
#> 1 -740.10 1506.20 1569.43 1556.43 0.95 50 135.13 0.00
#> 2 -687.45 1414.90 1512.17 1492.17 0.88 43 29.83 0.36
#> 3 -684.19 1422.38 1553.70 1526.70 0.79 36 23.31 0.56
#>
#> Analysis of Deviance Table :
#> npar logLik Df Deviance Boot p-value
#> 1 13 -740.10
#> 2 20 -687.45 7 105.31 0.00
#> 3 27 -684.19 7 6.52 0.26The output from the function gofglca() comprises of two
tables; goodness-of-fit table and analysis-of-deviance table. The former
shows model fit criteria such as AIC, CAIC, BIC, and entropy,
statistic, and its bootstrap
-value
for absolute model fit. In this example, the bootstrap
-values
indicate that the two-class model (Model 1) fits data poorly
(-value
= 0.00), but the three-class and the four-class models (Model 2 and
Model 3) fit data adequately
(-value
= 0.36 and 0.56, respectively). The latter table displays deviance
statistic comparing two competing models and its bootstrap
-value
for the relative model fit. The null hypothesis in the test for
comparing Model 1 and Model 2 (i.e., the fit of the two-class model is
not significantly poorer than the fit of the three-class model) should
be rejected
(-value
= 0.00). In the test for comparing Model 2 and Model 3, however, the
bootstrap
-value
(= 0.26) indicates that the fit of the four-class model has not been
improved significantly compared to the fit of the three-class model. In
addition, the three-class model has the smallest value among these three
models in the model fit criteria. Therefore, we can conclude that the
three-class model is an appropriate for the gss08 data.
summary(lca3)
#>
#> Call:
#> glca(formula = f, data = gss08, nclass = 3, seed = 1, verbose = FALSE)
#>
#> Manifest items : DEFECT HLTH RAPE POOR SINGLE NOMORE
#>
#> Categories for manifest items :
#> Y = 1 Y = 2
#> DEFECT YES NO
#> HLTH YES NO
#> RAPE YES NO
#> POOR YES NO
#> SINGLE YES NO
#> NOMORE YES NO
#>
#> Model : Latent class analysis
#>
#> Number of latent classes : 3
#> Number of observations : 352
#> Number of parameters : 20
#>
#> log-likelihood : -687.4486
#> G-squared : 29.82695
#> AIC : 1414.897
#> BIC : 1492.17
#>
#> Marginal prevalences for latent classes :
#> Class 1 Class 2 Class 3
#> 0.34467 0.46396 0.19138
#>
#> Class prevalences by group :
#> Class 1 Class 2 Class 3
#> ALL 0.34467 0.46396 0.19138
#>
#> Item-response probabilities (Y = 1) :
#> DEFECT HLTH RAPE POOR SINGLE NOMORE
#> Class 1 0.8275 0.9453 0.7960 0.0638 0.0390 0.1344
#> Class 2 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 0.9813 0.9284 0.9657
#> Class 3 0.0466 0.3684 0.0949 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000
#>
#> Item-response probabilities (Y = 2) :
#> DEFECT HLTH RAPE POOR SINGLE NOMORE
#> Class 1 0.1725 0.0547 0.2040 0.9362 0.9610 0.8656
#> Class 2 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 0.0187 0.0716 0.0343
#> Class 3 0.9534 0.6316 0.9051 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000
plot(lca3)
Considering group variable and testing the measurement
invariance As the group information provided in the data, we
can consider the multilevel data structure and compare the latent class
structure between higher-level units (i.e., groups). The
glca() function can incorporate group variable by setting
group argument as the name of group variable in the data. For example,
in order to investigate whether attitudes toward legalizing abortions
vary by the final degree of respondents, we may set DEGREE
as group variable by typing group = DEGREE in the
glca() function . DEGREE is coded into four
categories (i.e., "<= HS", "HIGH SCHOOL",
"COLLEGE", and "GRADUATE") indicating from
under high school diploma to graduate degree. Moreover, we can implement
the test for measurement invariance across groups using the
glca() function. The measurement invariance assumption can
be adjusted through measure.inv argument in
glca(). The default is measure.inv = TRUE,
constraining item-response probabilities to be equal across groups. The
following commands implement two different tests for group variable: (1)
test whether class prevalence is significantly influenced by group
variable under the measurement-invariant model; and (2) test whether the
measurement models differ across groups.
mglca1 <- glca(f, group = DEGREE, data = gss08, nclass = 3, seed = 1, verbose = FALSE)
mglca2 <- glca(f, group = DEGREE, data = gss08, nclass = 3, measure.inv = FALSE, seed = 1, verbose = FALSE)
gofglca(lca3, mglca1, mglca2, test = "chisq")
#> Model 1: item(DEFECT, HLTH, RAPE, POOR, SINGLE, NOMORE) ~ 1
#> nclass: 3
#> Model 2: item(DEFECT, HLTH, RAPE, POOR, SINGLE, NOMORE) ~ 1
#> Group: DEGREE, nclass: 3, measure.inv: TRUE
#> Model 3: item(DEFECT, HLTH, RAPE, POOR, SINGLE, NOMORE) ~ 1
#> Group: DEGREE, nclass: 3, measure.inv: FALSE
#>
#> Goodness of Fit Table :
#> logLik AIC CAIC BIC entropy Res.Df Gsq
#> 1 -687.45 1414.90 1512.17 1492.17 0.88 43 29.83
#> 2 -672.41 1396.83 1523.28 1497.28 0.88 229 87.85
#> 3 -650.95 1461.89 1850.98 1770.98 0.89 175 44.91
#>
#> Analysis of Deviance Table :
#> npar logLik Df Deviance Pr(>Chi)
#> 1 20 -687.45
#> 2 26 -672.41 6 30.07 0.00
#> 3 80 -650.95 54 42.94 0.86Since the model specified in the object lca3 (Model 1 in
the output from the goflca() function) is constructed with
six binary items, the number of parameters for the saturated models is
.
Therefore, degree of freedom for Model 1 is
.
The models specified in mglca1 and mglca2 (Model 2 and Model 3) are
involved with group variable with four categories, and the number of
parameters for the saturated models is
.
Therefore, degrees of freedom for Model 2 and Model 3 are
and
,
respectively. It should be noted that model comparison has been
conducted through chi-squares by setting test = "chisq"
because Model 1 is nested in Model 2, and Model 2 is nested in Model 3.
The analysis-of-deviance table provided by the gofglca()
function shows that the chi-square
-value
for comparing Model 1 and Model 2 is 0.00, while the
-value
for comparing Model 2 and Model 3 is 0.86. Hence, we can deduce that the
measurement invariance assumption can be assumed, but class prevalences
vary across levels of DEGREE.
Testing the equality of coefficients across groups:
We can further consider the subject-specific covariates which may
influence the probability of the individual belonging to a specific
class. Covariates such as AGE, RACE, and
SEX in the gss08 dataset can be incorporated
into the model specified in mglca1. AGE is
respondent’s age and considered as a numeric variable in the
glca() function. The respondent’s race, RACE
has three levels (i.e., "WHITE", "BLACK", and
"OTHER"), and the respondent’s gender, SEX is
coded as two categories (i.e., "MALE" and
"FEMALE"). We can easily implement the test for exploring
group differences using the gofglca() function. For
example, the following commands implement two different tests for
SEX: (1) test whether the class prevalence is significantly
influenced by SEX under the model where the coefficients
are constrained to be identical across groups; and (2) test for
assessing group difference in the effect of SEX on class
prevalence by specifying the model where coefficients are allowed to
vary across groups and comparing it to the model where coefficients are
constrained to be identical across groups. Since the iteration is
initiated with random parameters, the order of class labels can be
switched under the identical ML solution. Therefore, the random seed is
set as seed = 3 in the glca() function for the
model specified in mglcr1 below to ensure identical class
order as provided in Figure 1.
fx <- item(DEFECT, HLTH, RAPE, POOR, SINGLE, NOMORE) ~ SEX
mglcr1 <- glca(fx, group = DEGREE, data = gss08, nclass = 3, seed = 3, verbose = FALSE)
mglcr2 <- glca(fx, group = DEGREE, data = gss08, nclass = 3, coeff.inv = FALSE, seed = 1, verbose = FALSE)
gofglca(mglca1, mglcr1, mglcr2, test = "chisq")
#> Model 1: item(DEFECT, HLTH, RAPE, POOR, SINGLE, NOMORE) ~ 1
#> Group: DEGREE, nclass: 3, measure.inv: TRUE
#> Model 2: item(DEFECT, HLTH, RAPE, POOR, SINGLE, NOMORE) ~ SEX
#> Group: DEGREE, nclass: 3, measure.inv: TRUE, coeff.inv: TRUE
#> Model 3: item(DEFECT, HLTH, RAPE, POOR, SINGLE, NOMORE) ~ SEX
#> Group: DEGREE, nclass: 3, measure.inv: TRUE, coeff.inv: FALSE
#>
#> Goodness of Fit Table :
#> logLik AIC CAIC BIC entropy Res.Df Gsq
#> 1 -672.41 1396.83 1523.28 1497.28 0.88 229 87.85
#> 2 -666.71 1389.42 1525.60 1497.60 0.88 323 149.97
#> 3 -662.04 1392.09 1557.45 1523.45 0.88 317 140.64
#>
#> Analysis of Deviance Table :
#> npar logLik Df Deviance Pr(>Chi)
#> 1 26 -672.41
#> 2 28 -666.71 2 11.41 0.00
#> 3 34 -662.04 6 9.33 0.16The models specified in mglcr1 and mglcr2
(Model 2 and Model 3 in the output from the goflca()
function) are involved with an additional covariate, SEX, and the number
of possible cases is
.
However, as only 352 observations are used for the analysis, the number
of parameters for the saturated model becomes
.
Therefore, degrees of freedom for Model 2 and Model 3 are
and
,
respectively. The analysis-of-deviance table provided by the
gofglca() function shows that SEX has a significant impact
on the class prevalence
(-value
= 0.00) when we compare Model 1 with Model 2. However, the model without
any constraint on coefficients (Model 3) is not significantly superior
to Model 2
(-value
= 0.16), indicating that the impact of SEX is not group
specific. Note that Model 2 is mathematically equivalent to the standard
LCR with covariates DEGREE and SEX without the
interaction terms, but Model 2 is more intuitive and useful
configuration when comparison of latent structures by group is a major
concern.
Summarizing the results from the selected model: Based on the previous analysis, we can conclude that measurement models are equivalent across groups (i.e., measurement invariance assumption is satisfied) in the three-class latent class model. In addition, there is a significant effect of SEX on the class prevalence, but there is no group difference in the amount of effect.
Figure 1 displays the estimated parameters from the selected model
specified in mglcr1 using the command
plot(mglcr1). The line graph in Figure 1 displays the
estimated item-response probabilities. We can see that the identified
three classes are clearly distinguished by item-response probabilities.
Class 1 represents individuals who are in favor of all the six reasons
for abortion, while Class 3 represents those who consistently oppose all
the six reasons. Individuals in Class 2 seem to distinguish between
favoring the first three reasons (i.e., DEFECT,
HLTH, and RAPE) and opposing the last three
reasons (i.e., POOR, SINGLE, and
NOMORE) for abortion. The first bar graph in Figure 1
describes the estimated marginal class prevalences, and the second bar
graph displays the estimated class prevalences for each category of
group variable. The values in parentheses printed in the
x-axis are the group prevalences. Figure 1 displays that
the class prevalence varies across groups, and the respondents with
higher degrees are more advocate for legalizing abortion than those with
lower degrees. The covariate effect can be confirmed through the Wald
test for each of estimated odds ratios and coefficient by the command
coef(mglcr1).
The SEX coefficient results the same, while the
intercept determining the class prevalence differs across groups in the
selected model. To avoid redundancy and save space, only the results of
the SEX coefficient are displayed as follows, but the
entire output of the object can be displayed by the command
summary(mglcr1) in the R console.
coef(mglcr1)
#> Coefficients :
#>
#> Class 1 / 3 :
#> Odds Ratio Coefficient Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
#> SEXFEMALE 0.32824 -1.11400 0.09062 -12.29 <2e-16 ***
#> ---
#> Signif. codes: 0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
#>
#> Class 2 / 3 :
#> Odds Ratio Coefficient Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
#> SEXFEMALE 0.35678 -1.03064 0.09971 -10.34 <2e-16 ***
#> ---
#> Signif. codes: 0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
summary(mglcr1)
#>
#> Call:
#> glca(formula = fx, group = DEGREE, data = gss08, nclass = 3,
#> seed = 3, verbose = FALSE)
#>
#> Manifest items : DEFECT HLTH RAPE POOR SINGLE NOMORE
#> Grouping variable : DEGREE
#> Covariates (Level 1) : SEX
#>
#> Categories for manifest items :
#> Y = 1 Y = 2
#> DEFECT YES NO
#> HLTH YES NO
#> RAPE YES NO
#> POOR YES NO
#> SINGLE YES NO
#> NOMORE YES NO
#>
#> Model : Multiple-group latent class analysis
#>
#> Number of latent classes : 3
#> Number of groups : 4
#> Number of observations : 352
#> Number of parameters : 28
#>
#> log-likelihood : -666.7097
#> G-squared : 149.9656
#> AIC : 1389.419
#> BIC : 1497.601
#>
#> Marginal prevalences for latent classes :
#> Class 1 Class 2 Class 3
#> 0.46144 0.33996 0.19860
#>
#> Class prevalences by group :
#> Class 1 Class 2 Class 3
#> <= HS 0.16848 0.51010 0.32143
#> HIGH SCHOOL 0.44386 0.34339 0.21275
#> COLLEGE 0.55347 0.29616 0.15036
#> GRADUATE 0.71183 0.20237 0.08580
#>
#> Logistic regression coefficients :
#> Group : <= HS
#> Class 1/3 Class 2/3
#> (Intercept) 0.0811 1.1445
#> SEXFEMALE -1.1140 -1.0306
#>
#> Group : HIGH SCHOOL
#> Class 1/3 Class 2/3
#> (Intercept) 1.424 1.1261
#> SEXFEMALE -1.114 -1.0306
#>
#> Group : COLLEGE
#> Class 1/3 Class 2/3
#> (Intercept) 2.0173 1.3487
#> SEXFEMALE -1.1140 -1.0306
#>
#> Group : GRADUATE
#> Class 1/3 Class 2/3
#> (Intercept) 2.6492 1.3620
#> SEXFEMALE -1.1140 -1.0306
#>
#> Item-response probabilities (Y = 1) :
#> DEFECT HLTH RAPE POOR SINGLE NOMORE
#> Class 1 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 0.9836 0.9309 0.9682
#> Class 2 0.8342 0.9488 0.8086 0.0700 0.0440 0.1409
#> Class 3 0.0649 0.3825 0.0989 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000
#>
#> Item-response probabilities (Y = 2) :
#> DEFECT HLTH RAPE POOR SINGLE NOMORE
#> Class 1 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 0.0164 0.0691 0.0318
#> Class 2 0.1658 0.0512 0.1914 0.9300 0.9560 0.8591
#> Class 3 0.9351 0.6175 0.9011 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000The estimated coefficients for SEX and their odds ratios
show that females are less advocate for legalizing abortion compared to
their male counterparts.
Tobacco smoking behavior
The dataset nyts18 comprises five dichotomized manifest
items on the life-time experience of several types of tobacco including
cigarettes (ECIGT), cigars (ECIGAR), chewing
tobacco/snuff/or dip (ESLT), electronic cigarettes
(EELCIGT), and hookah or water pipe (EHOOKAH)
taken from the National Youth Tobacco Survey 2018 (NYTS
2018, https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/). The sample considered in
this study includes 1,743 non-Hispanic white students from 45 schools.
The number of sampled students from each school is in the range of 30 to
50. The school membership can be identified by SCH_ID and
each school is classified as either middle or high school
(SCH_LEV). (?nyts18)
According to socioecological models, patterns of adolescent tobacco
smoking are best understood as embedded within social contexts. These
social contexts can be either proximal in terms of individuals and peer
groups or more distal in terms of schools and community. Socioecological
models suggest that students within the same school often share common
socio-economic status (SES) and cultural characteristics that may cause
different tobacco smoking patterns compared to students attending other
schools. However, reflecting school (group) effect in an mgLCR is less
likely to provide a meaningful summary because there are too many
groups, that is, 45 schools in the nyts18 dataset. In this
case, npLCR would be more appropriate model to investigate group
difference in terms of a small number of latent clusters of schools.
data("nyts18")
str(nyts18)
#> 'data.frame': 1734 obs. of 8 variables:
#> $ ECIGT : Factor w/ 2 levels "Yes","No": 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 ...
#> $ ECIGAR : Factor w/ 2 levels "Yes","No": 2 1 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 2 ...
#> $ ESLT : Factor w/ 2 levels "Yes","No": 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 ...
#> $ EELCIGT: Factor w/ 2 levels "Yes","No": 2 1 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 2 ...
#> $ EHOOKAH: Factor w/ 2 levels "Yes","No": 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 ...
#> $ SEX : Factor w/ 2 levels "Male","Female": 2 1 1 1 1 2 1 2 1 2 ...
#> $ SCH_ID : Factor w/ 45 levels "d3c3dc","12d5ad",..: 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 ...
#> $ SCH_LEV: Factor w/ 2 levels "High School",..: 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...Selecting the number of latent classes: Prior to
conducting npLCR, it is necessary to determine the number of level-1
latent classes. Similar to the previous example, the two-, three-, and
four-class standard LCA models can be fitted and compared by the
gofglca() function as follow:
f <- item(starts.with = "E") ~ 1
lca2 <- glca(f, data = nyts18, nclass = 2, seed = 1, verbose = FALSE)
lca3 <- glca(f, data = nyts18, nclass = 3, seed = 1, verbose = FALSE)
lca4 <- glca(f, data = nyts18, nclass = 4, seed = 1, verbose = FALSE)
gofglca(lca2, lca3, lca4, test = "boot", seed = 1)
#> Model 1: item(starts.with = "E") ~ 1
#> nclass: 2
#> Model 2: item(starts.with = "E") ~ 1
#> nclass: 3
#> Model 3: item(starts.with = "E") ~ 1
#> nclass: 4
#>
#> Goodness of Fit Table :
#> logLik AIC CAIC BIC entropy Res.Df Gsq Boot p-value
#> 1 -2119.91 4261.83 4332.87 4321.87 0.92 20 96.48 0.00
#> 2 -2086.86 4207.71 4317.50 4300.50 0.87 14 30.37 0.28
#> 3 -2082.87 4211.74 4360.28 4337.28 0.82 8 22.40 0.78
#>
#> Analysis of Deviance Table :
#> npar logLik Df Deviance Boot p-value
#> 1 11 -2119.91
#> 2 17 -2086.86 6 66.11 0.0
#> 3 23 -2082.87 6 7.97 0.1The output of the gofglca() function indicates that the
three-class and the four-class models are adequate in terms of absolute
model fit
(-value
= 0.28 and 0.78, respectively), but the three-class LCA provides the
lowest values in information criteria. For the relative model fit, the
two-class LCA is rejected
(-value
= 0.00) on comparison with the three-class LCA using the bootstrap.
However, the three-class is not rejected
(-value
= 0.10) on comparison with the four-class model. Thus, it seems to be
reasonable to select the three-class LCA model for the
nyts18 dataset.
Selecting the number of latent clusters: Now, an
npLCR can be implemented by adding SCH_ID as group variable and
specifying the number of latent clusters (i.e., level-2 latent classes)
using the ncluster argument in the glca()
function. The two-, three-, and four-cluster npLCR with three latent
classes are fitted and compared using the following commands:
nplca2 <- glca(f, group = SCH_ID, data = nyts18, nclass = 3, ncluster = 2, seed = 1, verbose = FALSE)
nplca3 <- glca(f, group = SCH_ID, data = nyts18, nclass = 3, ncluster = 3, seed = 1, verbose = FALSE)
nplca4 <- glca(f, group = SCH_ID, data = nyts18, nclass = 3, ncluster = 4, seed = 1, verbose = FALSE)
gofglca(lca3, nplca2, nplca3, nplca4, test = "boot", seed = 1)
#> Model 1: item(starts.with = "E") ~ 1
#> nclass: 3
#> Model 2: item(starts.with = "E") ~ 1
#> Group: SCH_ID, nclass: 3, ncluster: 2
#> Model 3: item(starts.with = "E") ~ 1
#> Group: SCH_ID, nclass: 3, ncluster: 3
#> Model 4: item(starts.with = "E") ~ 1
#> Group: SCH_ID, nclass: 3, ncluster: 4
#>
#> Goodness of Fit Table :
#> logLik AIC CAIC BIC entropy Res.Df Gsq Boot p-value
#> 1 -2086.86 4207.71 4317.50 4300.50 0.87 14 30.37 0.20
#> 2 -1955.49 3950.97 4080.14 4060.14 0.84 1419 765.73 0.08
#> 3 -1938.73 3923.46 4072.00 4049.00 0.84 1416 732.22 0.22
#> 4 -1938.30 3928.60 4096.51 4070.51 0.84 1413 731.35 0.24
#>
#> Analysis of Deviance Table :
#> npar logLik Df Deviance Boot p-value
#> 1 17 -2086.86
#> 2 20 -1955.49 3 262.74 0.00
#> 3 23 -1938.73 3 33.51 0.00
#> 4 26 -1938.30 3 0.87 0.42The goodness-of-fit table shows that the three-cluster model (Model 3) has the smallest values in information criteria among others, and the bootstrap -value (= 0.22) indicates that this model is appropriate for the data. The analysis-of-deviance table shows that group effect is significant as Model 1 has better fit than Model 2 (-value = 0.00). In addition, the three-cluster model (Model 3) has better fit than the two-cluster model (Model 2, -value = 0.00), but there is insignificant difference between the three- and four-cluster models (Model 3 and Model 4) in the model fit (-value = 0.42). Therefore, we can conclude that the three-cluster model is most appropriate among others.
Testing the equality of coefficients for level-1 covariates
across groups: Covariates can be incorporated into npLCR using
the glca() function; not only the subject-specific (i.e.,
level-1) covariates (e.g., SEX) but also the group-specific
(i.e., level-2) covariates (e.g., SCH_LEV). As shown in the
previous example, subject-specific covariates are constrained to be
equal across latent clusters by default (i.e.,
coeff.inv = TRUE). The chi-square LRT test for checking the
equality of coefficients for level-1 covariate, SEX can be
conducted using the gofglca() function as follows:
fx <- item(starts.with = "E") ~ SEX
nplcr1 <- glca(fx, group = SCH_ID, data = nyts18, nclass = 3, ncluster = 2, seed = 1, verbose = FALSE)
nplcr2 <- glca(fx, group = SCH_ID, data = nyts18, nclass = 3, ncluster = 2, seed = 1, coeff.inv = FALSE, verbose = FALSE)
nplcr.gof <- gofglca(nplca3, nplcr1, nplcr2, test = "chisq")
nplcr.gof$dtable
#> npar logLik Df Deviance Pr(>Chi)
#> 2 22 -1951.879 NA NA NA
#> 1 23 -1938.731 1 26.294 2.931509e-07
#> 3 24 -1949.498 1 -21.533 1.000000e+00Note that typing nplca.gof$dtable into the R console
will return the analysis-of-deviance table. Considering the
-values
given in the table above, the equality of SEX effect can be assumed.
Therefore, we conclude that the model specified in nplcr1
should be selected for the nyts18 dataset.
coef(nplcr1)
#>
#> Level 1 Coefficients :
#>
#> Class 1 / 3 :
#> Odds Ratio Coefficient Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
#> SEXFemale 1.05946 0.05776 0.16491 0.35 0.726
#>
#> Class 2 / 3 :
#> Odds Ratio Coefficient Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
#> SEXFemale 1.9301 0.6576 0.2071 3.176 0.00152 **
#> ---
#> Signif. codes: 0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
plot(nplcr1)
Incorporating the level-2 covariates: In npLCR, the
meaning of the latent cluster (i.e., level-2 class) is interpreted by
the prevalence of latent class (i.e., level-1 class) for each of cluster
membership. When level-2 covariates are incorporated into the model,
this prevalence is designed to be affected by level-2 covariates as
shown (5). In other words, as level-2 covariates significantly influence
the prevalence of level-1 class, the meaning of latent cluster may
change as the level of level-2 covariate changes. Therefore, the number
of clusters could be reduced when level-2 covariates are included
compared to the number of clusters of npLCR without any level-2
covariate. As we selected the three-cluster model without any level-2
covariate for the nyts18 dataset, the fit of the
three-cluster model should be compared with the fit of the two-cluster
model when SCH_LEV is incorporated as a level-2 covariate. Note that
different seed values (seed = 3 and seed = 6)
are used in the glca() function below in order to produce
the class order displayed in Figure 2.
f.2 <- item(starts.with = "E") ~ SEX + SCH_LEV
nplcr3 <- glca(f.2, group = SCH_ID, data = nyts18, nclass = 3, ncluster = 2, seed = 3, verbose = FALSE)
nplcr4 <- glca(f.2, group = SCH_ID, data = nyts18, nclass = 3, ncluster = 3, seed = 6, verbose = FALSE)
gofglca(nplcr3, nplcr4, test = "boot", seed = 1)
#> Model 1: item(starts.with = "E") ~ SEX + SCH_LEV
#> Group: SCH_ID, nclass: 3, ncluster: 2, coeff.inv: TRUE
#> Model 2: item(starts.with = "E") ~ SEX + SCH_LEV
#> Group: SCH_ID, nclass: 3, ncluster: 3, coeff.inv: TRUE
#>
#> Goodness of Fit Table :
#> logLik AIC CAIC BIC entropy Res.Df Gsq Boot p-value
#> 1 -1919.94 3887.87 4042.87 4018.87 0.83 1709 1052.54 0.12
#> 2 -1916.30 3886.60 4060.97 4033.97 0.84 1706 1045.26 0.06
#>
#> Analysis of Deviance Table :
#> npar logLik Df Deviance Boot p-value
#> 1 24 -1919.94
#> 2 27 -1916.30 3 7.28 0The analysis-of-deviance table from the gofglca() function shows that
three clusters are required even when a level-2 covariate SCH_LEV is
incorporated
(-value
= 0.00). However, information criteria and
-values
for absolute model fit may let us reach a different conclusion: the
two-cluster model provides smaller values in some information criteria
and the
-value
(= 0.12) indicates that the model is appropriate for the dataset.
Without strong prior beliefs, the number of latent clusters should be
chosen to strike a balance between parsimony, fit, and interpretability.
Two bar graphs in Figure 2 display the estimated class prevalences for
each cluster membership from the models specified in nplcr3
and nplcr4 using the plot() function,
respectively. The values in parentheses printed in the x-axis are the
estimated cluster prevalence. The bar graph in the right, which is
generated from the object nplcr4, shows that there is not
much difference in class prevalence among these three clusters, compared
to the bar graph in the left generated from the two-cluster model
specified in nplcr3. In other words, the three-cluster
model is not substantively meaningful, and therefore, we may conclude
that the two-cluster model specified in nplcr3 is more
adequate to describe cluster (group) variation in the latent class
distribution.
Summarizing the results from the selected model: The
estimated parameters from the three-class and two-cluster npLCR model
specified in nplcr3 are shown in Figure 3 using the
plot() function. Based on the line graph in Figure 3, we
deduce that Class 1 represents the poly-user group; Class 2 is the
electronic cigarette user group; and Class 3 is the non-smoking group.
We already argued that the two latent clusters were clearly
distinguished by their class prevalence using the left bar graph in
Figure 2. According to this stacked bar graph, the probability of
engagement in a certain latent class is significantly different between
these two school clusters. About 12% and 29% of students in Cluster 2
belong to Class 1 (poly-user group) and Class 2 (electronic cigarette
user group), whereas only 2% and 9% of them belong to Class 1 and Class
2, respectively. The difference in class prevalences by cluster
indicates that students who attend a school classified as Cluster 2 are
more likely to be smokers relative to a similar student attending a
school classified as Cluster 1. The full output of the
glca() function for the selected model can be displayed by
the summary() function as follows:
summary(nplcr3)
#>
#> Call:
#> glca(formula = f.2, group = SCH_ID, data = nyts18, nclass = 3,
#> ncluster = 2, seed = 3, verbose = FALSE)
#>
#> Manifest items : ECIGAR ECIGT EELCIGT EHOOKAH ESLT
#> Grouping variable : SCH_ID
#> Covariates (Level 1) : SEX
#> Covariates (Level 2) : SCH_LEV
#>
#> Categories for manifest items :
#> Y = 1 Y = 2
#> ECIGAR Yes No
#> ECIGT Yes No
#> EELCIGT Yes No
#> EHOOKAH Yes No
#> ESLT Yes No
#>
#> Model : Nonparametric multilevel latent class analysis
#>
#> Number of latent classes : 3
#> Number of latent clusters : 2
#> Number of groups : 45
#> Number of observations : 1734
#> Number of parameters : 24
#>
#> log-likelihood : -1919.937
#> G-squared : 1052.541
#> AIC : 3887.874
#> BIC : 4018.87
#>
#> Marginal prevalences for latent classes :
#> Class 1 Class 2 Class 3
#> 0.06455 0.18159 0.75385
#>
#> Marginal prevalences for latent clusters :
#> Cluster 1 Cluster 2
#> 0.54083 0.45917
#>
#> Class prevalences by cluster :
#> Class 1 Class 2 Class 3
#> Cluster 1 0.0199 0.08978 0.89032
#> Cluster 2 0.1175 0.29044 0.59206
#>
#> Logistic regression coefficients (level 1) :
#> Cluster 1
#> Class 1/3 Class 2/3
#> (Intercept) -2.6345 -1.0654
#> SEXFemale 0.6307 0.1159
#>
#> Cluster 2
#> Class 1/3 Class 2/3
#> (Intercept) -0.8997 0.1671
#> SEXFemale 0.6307 0.1159
#>
#> Logistic regression coefficients (level 2) :
#> Class 1/3 Class 2/3
#> SCH_LEVMiddle School -2.5656 -1.9522
#>
#> Item-response probabilities (Y = 1) :
#> ECIGAR ECIGT EELCIGT EHOOKAH ESLT
#> Class 1 0.9657 0.8914 0.9782 0.5049 0.5507
#> Class 2 0.1696 0.3227 0.7266 0.0394 0.1127
#> Class 3 0.0034 0.0033 0.0372 0.0056 0.0074
#>
#> Item-response probabilities (Y = 2) :
#> ECIGAR ECIGT EELCIGT EHOOKAH ESLT
#> Class 1 0.0343 0.1086 0.0218 0.4951 0.4493
#> Class 2 0.8304 0.6773 0.2734 0.9606 0.8873
#> Class 3 0.9966 0.9967 0.9628 0.9944 0.9926As shown in the previous example, the result of Wald test for each of
estimated odds ratios and coefficients can be obtained by typing
coef(nplcr3) into the R console (results not shown here).
The Wald test shows that females are more likely to belong to Class 1
than Class 3, indicating that females are at a higher risk than their
male counterparts. For level-2 covariate SCH_LEV, middle
schools are less likely to belong to Class 1 or 2 than Class 3, that is,
middle-school students tend to smoke less than high-school students.
Imputing the cluster membership: Researchers often
want to explore the effects of level-2 covariates on the imputed latent
cluster membership. Note that we selected the two-cluster model
specified in nplcr3. We can easily impute the latent
cluster membership for 45 schools using the posterior probabilities from
the model specified in nplcr3 and fit the standard logistic
regression with SCH_LEV as a covariate. The posterior
probabilities for latent cluster can be accessed by
nplcr3$posterior$cluster. The following codes generate the
imputed latent cluster membership for each school and save the cluster
membership in ndata with level-2 covariate
SCH_LEV.
tmp1 <- unique(nyts18[c("SCH_ID", "SCH_LEV")])
tmp2 <- nplcr3$posterior$cluster
tmp3 <- data.frame(SCH_ID = rownames(tmp2), Cluster = factor(apply(tmp2, 1, which.max)))
ndata <- merge(tmp1, tmp3)
head(ndata)
#> SCH_ID SCH_LEV Cluster
#> 1 00b895 Middle School 1
#> 2 066e6c High School 2
#> 3 0690d1 High School 2
#> 4 0fc94b High School 2
#> 5 12d5ad Middle School 1
#> 6 16082c Middle School 1Using the logistic regression, the effect of level-2 covariate
SCH_LEV on the latent cluster membership can be estimated
as following:
fit <- glm(Cluster ~ SCH_LEV, family = binomial, data = ndata)
summary(fit)
#>
#> Call:
#> glm(formula = Cluster ~ SCH_LEV, family = binomial, data = ndata)
#>
#> Deviance Residuals:
#> Min 1Q Median 3Q Max
#> -1.4823 -0.9005 -0.9005 0.9005 1.4823
#>
#> Coefficients:
#> Estimate Std. Error z value Pr(>|z|)
#> (Intercept) 0.6931 0.5477 1.266 0.2057
#> SCH_LEVMiddle School -1.3863 0.6708 -2.067 0.0388 *
#> ---
#> Signif. codes: 0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
#>
#> (Dispersion parameter for binomial family taken to be 1)
#>
#> Null deviance: 61.827 on 44 degrees of freedom
#> Residual deviance: 57.286 on 43 degrees of freedom
#> AIC: 61.286
#>
#> Number of Fisher Scoring iterations: 4