Mixed Effects Models with Censored Covariates, with Applications in HIV/AIDS Studies

Abstract

Mixed effects models are widely used for modelling clustered data when there are large variations between clusters, since mixed effects models allow for cluster-specific inference. In some longitudinal studies such as HIV/AIDS studies, it is common that some time-varying covariates may be left or right censored due to detection limits, may be missing at times of interest, or may be measured with errors. To address these "incomplete data" problems, a common approach is to model the time-varying covariates based on observed covariate data and then use the fitted model to "predict" the censored or missing or mismeasured covariates. In this article, we provide a review of the common approaches for censored covariates in longitudinal and survival response models and advocate nonlinear mechanistic covariate models if such models are available.