Privacy-preserving Meta-analysis through Low-Rank Basis Hunting

TL;DR

MetaHunt is a novel privacy-preserving meta-analysis method that uses low-rank basis hunting to predict functions for new populations based on study-level data, with proven consistency and valid uncertainty quantification.

Contribution

It introduces a low-rank basis hunting approach for functional meta-analysis that preserves privacy and accommodates different machine learning models for each study.

Findings

MetaHunt accurately predicts functions in simulations and real data.

It provides valid asymptotic coverage for prediction intervals.

The method is robust to study heterogeneity and data privacy constraints.

Abstract

A central challenge of meta-analysis is that the populations underlying existing studies often differ from the target population in unknown ways. We study the problem of predicting function-valued quantities, such as regression and conditional average treatment effect functions, for a new target population using only study-level covariates and estimates. We propose MetaHunt, a new meta-analysis methodology based on a shared low-rank structure, in which the true function from each study lies within the convex hull of a small set of latent basis functions. To recover these basis functions, we extend the Successive Projection Algorithm to the functional setting, incorporating a denoised basis-hunting step. We establish consistency of the recovered basis functions under mild regularity conditions. We then model the relationship between study-level covariates and the corresponding mixing weights using flexible semi-parametric or non-parametric methods. MetaHunt is privacy-preserving and enables meta-analytic prediction based on study-level information alone, even when individual-level data are unavailable to analysts. In addition, for each study, functions of interest can be estimated using possibly different machine learning algorithms. For uncertainty quantification, we construct prediction intervals via conformal prediction. We show that, under exchangeability and mild estimation-error conditions, these intervals achieve asymptotically valid marginal coverage. We demonstrate the effectiveness of MetaHunt through both simulation studies and empirical applications.