Reflection on modern methods: a note on variance estimation when using inverse probability weighting to handle attrition in cohort studies

The inverse probability weighting (IPW) method is used to handle attrition in association analyses derived from cohort studies. It consists in weighting the respondents at a given follow-up by their inverse probability to participate. Weights are estimated first and then used in a weighted association model. When the IPW method is used, instead of using a so-called naive variance estimator, the literature recommends using a robust variance estimator. However, the latter may overestimate the variance because the weights are considered known rather than estimated. In this note, we develop, by a linearization technique, an estimator accounting for the weight estimation phase and explain how it differs from naive and robust variance estimators. We compare the three variance estimators through simulations under several MAR and MNAR scenarios. We found that both the robust and linearized variance estimators were approximately unbiased, even in MNAR scenarios. The naive variance estimator severely underestimated the variance. We encourage researchers to be careful with variance estimation when using the IPW method, avoiding naive estimator and opting for a robust or linearized estimator. R and SAS codes are provided to implement them in their own studies.