Options for Displaying bal.tab() Output

Several additional arguments can be passed to bal.tab() that control the display of the output; these arguments are documented here.

Not all arguments are applicable to all uses of bal.tab(); for example, which.subclass, which controls which subclasses are displayed when subclassification is used, won't do anything when subclassification is not used.

Note that when quick = TRUE is set in the call to bal.tab() (which is the default), setting any of these arguments to FALSE can prevent some values from being computed, which can have unintended effects.

Arguments

disp.bal.tab

logical; whether to display the table of balance statistics. Default is TRUE, so the balance table is displayed.

imbalanced.only

logical; whether to display only the covariates that failed to meet at least one of balance thresholds. Default is FALSE, so all covariates are displayed.

un

logical; whether to print statistics for the unadjusted sample as well as for the adjusted sample. Default is FALSE, so only the statistics for the adjusted sample are displayed.

disp

character; which distribution summary statistic(s) should be reported. Allowable options include "means" and "sds". Multiple options are allowed. Abbreviations allowed.

stats

character; which statistic(s) should be reported. See stats to see which options are available. Multiple options are allowed. Abbreviations allowed. For binary and multi-category treatments, the default is "mean.diffs" (i.e., [standardized] mean differences), and for continuous treatments, the default is "correlations" (i.e., treatment-covariate Pearson correlations).

factor_sep

character; the string used to separate factor variables from their levels when variable names are printed. Default is "_".

int_sep

character; the string used to separate two variables involved in an interaction when variable names are printed. Default is " * ". Older versions of cobalt used "_".

disp.call

logical; whether to display the function call from the original input object, if present. Default is FALSE, so the function call is not displayed.

When subclassification is used

which.subclass

Which subclasses (if any) should be displayed. If .all, all subclasses will be displayed. If .none (the default), no subclasses will be displayed. Otherwise, can be a vector of subclass indices for which to display balance.

subclass.summary

logical; whether to display the balance summary across subclasses. If TRUE, the balance summary across subclasses will be displayed. The default is TRUE, and if which.subclass is .none, it will automatically be set to TRUE.

When the treatment is multi-category

which.treat

For which treatments or treatment combinations balance tables should be displayed. If a vector of length 1 is entered, all comparisons involving that treatment group will be displayed. If a vector of length 2 or more is entered, all comparisons involving treatments that both appear in the input will be displayed. For example, setting which.treat = "A" will display "A vs. B" and "A vs. C", while setting which.treat = c("A", "B") will only display "A vs. B". .none indicates no treatment comparisons will be displayed, and .all indicates all treatment comparisons will be displayed. Default is .none. See bal.tab.multi.

multi.summary

logical; whether to display the balance summary across all treatment pairs. This includes one row for each covariate with maximum balance statistic across all pairwise comparisons. Note that, if variance ratios or KS statistics are requested, the displayed values may not come from the same pairwise comparisons; that is, the greatest standardized mean difference and the greatest variance ratio may not come from the same comparison. Default is TRUE when which.treat is .none and FALSE otherwise. See bal.tab.multi.

When clusters are present

which.cluster

For which clusters balance tables should be displayed. If .all, all clusters in cluster will be displayed. If .none, no clusters will be displayed. Otherwise, can be a vector of cluster names or numerical indices for which to display balance. Indices correspond to the alphabetical order of cluster names (or the order of cluster levels if a factor). Default is .all. See bal.tab.cluster.

cluster.summary

logical; whether to display the balance summary across clusters. Default is TRUE when which.cluster is .none and FALSE otherwise (note the default for which.cluster is .all). See bal.tab.cluster.

cluster.fun

Which function is used in the across-cluster summary to combine results across clusters. Can be "min", "mean", or "max". For example, if cluster.fun = "mean" the mean balance statistic across clusters will be displayed. The default when abs = FALSE in the bal.tab() call is to display all three. The default when abs = FALSE in the bal.tab() call is to display just the mean and max balance statistic. See bal.tab.cluster.

When multiple imputations are present

which.imp

For which imputations balance tables should be displayed. If .all, all imputations in imp will be displayed. If .none, no imputations will be displayed. Otherwise, can be a vector of imputation indices for which to display balance. Default is .none. See bal.tab.imp.

imp.summary

logical; whether to display the balance summary across imputations. Default is TRUE when which.imp is .none and FALSE otherwise. See bal.tab.imp.

imp.fun

Which function is used in the across-imputation summary to combine results across imputations. Can be "min", "mean", or "max". For example, if imp.fun = "mean" the mean balance statistic across imputations will be displayed. The default when abs = FALSE in the bal.tab() call is to display all three. The default when abs = FALSE in the bal.tab() call is to display just the mean and max balance statistic. See bal.tab.imp.

When the treatment is longitudinal

which.time

For which time points balance tables should be displayed. If .all, all time points will be displayed. If .none, no time points will be displayed. Otherwise, can be a vector of treatment names or indices for which to display balance. Default is .none. See bal.tab.msm.

msm.summary

logical; whether to display the balance summary across time points. Default is TRUE when which.time is .none and FALSE otherwise. See bal.tab.msm.

Deprecated arguments

The following arguments are deprecated but still work.

disp.means

logical; whether to print the group means in balance output. Default is FALSE, so means are not displayed. Deprecated; use disp instead.

disp.sds

logical; whether to print the group standard deviations in balance output. Default is FALSE, so standard deviations are not displayed. Deprecated; use disp instead.

disp.diff

logical; whether to display (standardized) mean differences in balance output for binary and multi-category treatments. Default is TRUE, so mean differences are displayed. Deprecated; use stats instead.

disp.v.ratio

logical; whether to display variance ratios in balance output for binary and multi-category treatments. Default is FALSE, so variance ratios are not displayed. Deprecated; use stats instead.

disp.ks

logical; whether to display Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) statistics in balance output for binary and multi-category treatments. Default is FALSE, so KS statistics are not displayed. Deprecated; use stats instead.

disp.ovl

logical; whether to display overlapping (OVL) coefficients in balance output for binary and multi-category treatments. Default is FALSE, so OVL coefficients are not displayed. Deprecated; use stats instead.

Details

In addition to being able to be specified as arguments, if you find you frequently set a display option to something other than its default, you can set that as a global option (for the present R session) using set.cobalt.options() and retrieve it using get.cobalt.options(). Note that global options cannot be set for which.subclass, which.cluster, which.imp, which.treat, or which.time.

Note

When calling bal.tab() using do.call(), if you are using .all or .none as inputs to arguments, you need to use alist() rather than list() to group the arguments. For example, do.call(bal.tab, list(., which.cluster = .none)) will produce an error, but do.call(bal.tab, alist(., which.cluster = .none)) should work correctly.

See also

bal.tab(), print.bal.tab()