Hello, I am using IVEware for multiple imputation for the first time on a large national health survey. One of the variables imputed is income and I'm finding that imputed values can vary dramatically within-subjects across multiply imputed datasets. For instance, in some cases Person A might have an imputed income of $3,000 in one imputation, and then $$100,000 in another imputation. This within-person variability far exceeds what I'm seeing with other variables in the survey. The distributions, means, and standard deviations of the imputed vs. non-imputed values are comparable. And multivariate regression results using the multiply imputed datasets and the original dataset with missing values are reasonably robust, with the same substantive conclusions and very close coefficient estimates. So, I'm wondering if this degree of within-subject variability across imputations is something to worry about, and potentially an indicator of a mis-specified imputation model....or whether this kind of within-subject variability across imputed datasets is typical.
Thanks, Paul Shattuck -- Paul T. Shattuck, Ph.D. 533B Waisman Center University of Wisconsin 1500 Highland Ave. Madison, WI 53705 608-890-0752 [email protected]
