A post by Codie Wood, PhD student on the Compass programme.
This blog post is an introduction to structure preserving estimation (SPREE) methods. These methods form the foundation of my current work with the Office for National Statistics (ONS), where I am undertaking a six-month internship as part of my PhD. During this internship, I am focusing on the use of SPREE to provide small area estimates of population characteristic counts and proportions.
Small area estimation
Small area estimation (SAE) refers to the collection of methods used to produce accurate and precise population characteristic estimates for small population domains. Examples of domains may include low-level geographical areas, or population subgroups. An example of an SAE problem would be estimating the national population breakdown in small geographical areas by ethnic group [2015_Luna].
Demographic surveys with a large enough scale to provide high-quality direct estimates at a fine-grain level are often expensive to conduct, and so smaller sample surveys are often conducted instead.
SAE methods work by drawing information from different data sources and similar population domains in order to obtain accurate and precise model-based estimates where sample counts are too small for high quality direct estimates. We use the term small area to refer to domains where we have little or no data available in our sample survey.
SAE methods are frequently relied upon for population characteristic estimation, particularly as there is an increasing demand for information about local populations in order to ensure correct allocation of resources and services across the nation.
Structure preserving estimation
Structure preserving estimation (SPREE) is one of the tools used within SAE to provide population composition estimates. We use the term composition here to refer to a population break down into a two-way contingency table containing positive count values. Here, we focus on the case where we have a population broken down into geographical areas (e.g. local authority) and some subgroup or category (e.g. ethnic group or age).
Orginal SPREE-type estimators, as proposed in [1980_Purcell], can be used in the case when we have a proxy data source for our target composition, containing information for the same set of areas and categories but that may not entirely accurately represent the variable of interest. This is usually because the data are outdated or have a slightly different variable definition than the target.
We also incorporate benchmark estimates of the row and column totals for our composition of interest, taken from trusted, quality assured data sources and treated as known values. This ensures consistency with higher level known population estimates. SPREE then adjusts the proxy data to the estimates of the row and column totals to obtain the improved estimate of the target composition.
An illustration of the data required to produce SPREE-type estimates.
In an extension of SPREE, known as generalised SPREE (GSPREE) [2004_Zhang], the proxy data can also be supplemented by sample survey data to generate estimates that are less subject to bias and uncertainty than it would be possible to generate from each source individually. The survey data used is assumed to be a valid measure of the target variable (i.e. it has the same definition and is not out of date), but due to small sample sizes may have a degree of uncertainty or bias for some cells.
The GSPREE method establishes a relationship between the proxy data and the survey data, with this relationship being used to adjust the proxy compositions towards the survey data.
An illustration of the data required to produce GSPREE estimates.
GSPREE is not the only extension to SPREE-type methods, but those are beyond the scope of this post. Further extensions such as Multivariate SPREE are discussed in detail in [2016_Luna].
Original SPREE methods
First, we describe original SPREE-type estimators. For these estimators, we require only well-established estimates of the margins of our target composition.
We will denote the target composition of interest by $\mathbf{Y} = (Y{aj})$, where $Y{aj}$ is the cell count for small area $a = 1,\dots,A$ and group $j = 1,\dots,J$. We can write $\mathbf Y$ in the form of a saturated log-linear model as the sum of four terms,
$$ \log Y_{aj} = \alpha_0^Y + \alpha_a^Y + \alpha_j^Y + \alpha_{aj}^Y.$$
There are multiple ways to write this parameterisation, and here we use the centered constraints parameterisation given by $$\alpha_0^Y = \frac{1}{AJ}\sum_a\sum_j\log Y_{aj},$$ $$\alpha_a^Y = \frac{1}{J}\sum_j\log Y_{aj} – \alpha_0^Y,$$ $$\alpha_j^Y = \frac{1}{A}\sum_a\log Y_{aj} – \alpha_0^Y,$$ $$\alpha_{aj}^Y = \log Y_{aj} – \alpha_0^Y – \alpha_a^Y – \alpha_j^Y,$$
which satisfy the constraints $\sum_a \alpha_a^Y = \sum_j \alpha_j^Y = \sum_a \alpha_{aj}^Y = \sum_j \alpha_{aj}^Y = 0.$
Using this expression, we can decompose $\mathbf Y$ into two structures:
- The association structure, consisting of the set of $AJ$ interaction terms $\alpha_{aj}^Y$ for $a = 1,\dots,A$ and $j = 1,\dots,J$. This determines the relationship between the rows (areas) and columns (groups).
- The allocation structure, consisting of the sets of terms $\alpha_0^Y, \alpha_a^Y,$ and $\alpha_j^Y$ for $a = 1,\dots,A$ and $j = 1,\dots,J$. This determines the size of the composition, and differences between the sets of rows (areas) and columns (groups).
Suppose we have a proxy composition $\mathbf X$ of the same dimensions as $\mathbf Y$, and we have the sets of row and column margins of $\mathbf Y$ denoted by $\mathbf Y_{a+} = (Y_{1+}, \dots, Y_{A+})$ and $\mathbf Y_{+j} = (Y_{+1}, \dots, Y_{+J})$, where $+$ substitutes the index being summed over.
We can then use iterative proportional fitting (IPF) to produce an estimate $\widehat{\mathbf Y}$ of $\mathbf Y$ that preserves the association structure observed in the proxy composition $\mathbf X$. The IPF procedure is as follows:
- Rescale the rows of $\mathbf X$ as $$ \widehat{Y}_{aj}^{(1)} = X_{aj} \frac{Y_{+j}}{X_{+j}},$$
- Rescale the columns of $\widehat{\mathbf Y}^{(1)}$ as $$ \widehat{Y}_{aj}^{(2)} = \widehat{Y}_{aj}^{(1)} \frac{Y_{a+}}{\widehat{Y}_{a+}^{(1)}},$$
- Rescale the rows of $\widehat{\mathbf Y}^{(2)}$ as $$ \widehat{Y}_{aj}^{(3)} = \widehat{Y}_{aj}^{(2)} \frac{Y_{+j}}{\widehat{Y}_{+j}^{(2)}}.$$
Steps 2 and 3 are then repeated until convergence occurs, and we have a final composition estimate denoted by $\widehat{\mathbf Y}^S$ which has the same association structure as our proxy composition, i.e. we have $\alpha_{aj}^X = \alpha_{aj}^Y$ for all $a \in \{1,\dots,A\}$ and $j \in \{1,\dots,J\}.$ This is a key assumption of the SPREE implementation, which in practise is often restrictive, motivating a generalisation of the method.
Generalised SPREE methods
If we can no longer assume that the proxy composition and target compositions have the same association structure, we instead use the GSPREE method first introduced in [2004_Zhang], and incorporate survey data into our estimation process.
The GSPREE method relaxes the assumption that $\alpha_{aj}^X = \alpha_{aj}^Y$ for all $a \in \{1,\dots,A\}$ and $j \in \{1,\dots,J\},$ instead imposing the structural assumption $\alpha_{aj}^Y = \beta \alpha_{aj}^X$, i.e. the association structure of the proxy and target compositions are proportional to one another. As such, we note that SPREE is a particular case of GSPREE where $\beta = 1$.
Continuing with our notation from the previous section, we proceed to estimate $\beta$ by modelling the relationship between our target and proxy compositions as a generalised linear structural model (GLSM) given by
$$\tau_{aj}^Y = \lambda_j + \beta \tau_{aj}^X,$$ with $\sum_j \lambda_j = 0$, and where $$ \begin{align} \tau_{aj}^Y &= \log Y_{aj} – \frac{1}{J}\sum_j\log Y_{aj},\\
&= \alpha_{aj}^Y + \alpha_j^Y,
\end{align}$$ and analogously for $\mathbf X$.
It is shown in [2016_Luna] that fitting this model is equivalent to fitting a Poisson generalised linear model to our cell counts, with a $\log$ link function. We use the association structure of our proxy data, as well as categorical variables representing the area and group of the cell, as our covariates. Then we have a model given by $$\log Y_{aj} = \gamma_a + \tilde{\lambda}_j + \tilde{\beta}\alpha_{aj}^X,$$ with $\gamma_a = \alpha_0^Y + \alpha_a^Y$, $\tilde\lambda_j = \alpha_j^Y$ and $\tilde\beta \alpha_{aj}^X = \alpha_{aj}^Y.$
When fitting the model we use survey data $\tilde{\mathbf Y}$ as our response variable, and are then able to obtain a set of unbenchmarked estimates of our target composition. The GSPREE method then benchmarks these to estimates of the row and column totals, following a procedure analagous to that undertaken in the orginal SPREE methodology, to provide a final set of estimates for our target composition.
ONS applications
The ONS has used GSPREE to provide population ethnicity composition estimates in intercensal years, where the detailed population estimates resulting from the census are outdated [2015_Luna]. In this case, the census data is considered the proxy data source. More recent works have also used GSPREE to estimate counts of households and dwellings in each tenure at the subnational level during intercensal years [2023_ONS].
My work with the ONS has focussed on extending the current workflows and systems in place to implement these methods in a reproducible manner, allowing them to be applied to a wider variety of scenarios with differing data availability.
References
[1980_Purcell] Purcell, Noel J., and Leslie Kish. 1980. ‘Postcensal Estimates for Local Areas (Or Domains)’. International Statistical Review / Revue Internationale de Statistique 48 (1): 3–18. https://doi.org/10/b96g3g.
[2004_Zhang] Zhang, Li-Chun, and Raymond L. Chambers. 2004. ‘Small Area Estimates for Cross-Classifications’. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B: Statistical Methodology 66 (2): 479–96. https://doi.org/10/fq2ftt.
[2015_Luna] Luna Hernández, Ángela, Li-Chun Zhang, Alison Whitworth, and Kirsten Piller. 2015. ‘Small Area Estimates of the Population Distribution by Ethnic Group in England: A Proposal Using Structure Preserving Estimators’. Statistics in Transition New Series and Survey Methodology 16 (December). https://doi.org/10/gs49kq.
[2016_Luna] Luna Hernández, Ángela. 2016. ‘Multivariate Structure Preserving Estimation for Population Compositions’. PhD thesis, University of Southampton, School of Social Sciences. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/404689/.
[2023_ONS] Office for National Statistics (ONS), released 17 May 2023, ONS website, article, Tenure estimates for households and dwellings, England: GSPREE compared with Census 2021 data