Multiple testing of partial conjunction null hypotheses with conditional p-values based on combination test statistics

10/13/2021
by   Thorsten Dickhaus, et al.
0

The partial conjunction null hypothesis is tested in order to discover a signal that is present in multiple studies. We propose methods for multiple testing of partial conjunction null hypotheses which make use of conditional p-values based on combination test statistics. Specific examples comprise the Fisher combination function and the Stouffer combination function. The conditional validity of the corresponding p-values is proved for certain classes of one-parametric statistical models, including one-parameter natural exponential families. The standard approach of carrying out a multiple test procedure on the (unconditional) partial conjunction p-values can be extremely conservative. We suggest alleviating this conservativeness, by eliminating many of the conservative partial conjunction p-values prior to the application of a multiple test procedure. This leads to the following two step procedure: first, select the set with partial conjunction p-values below a selection threshold; second, within the selected set only, apply a family-wise error rate or false discovery rate controlling procedure on the conditional partial conjunction p-values. By means of computer simulations and real data analyses, we compare the proposed methodology with other recent approaches.

READ FULL TEXT

Please sign up or login with your details

Forgot password? Click here to reset