Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • This Month
  • Published:

Points of significance

Propensity score weighting

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. —Mr. Spock (Star Trek II)

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Average treatment effect (ATE) weights create a pseudo-population in which confounders are balanced.
Fig. 2: Confounder distributions can be rebalanced with average treatment effect (ATE) weights.
Fig. 3: Comparison of deteriorating performance of PSM and PSW at small cohort sizes.

References

  1. Kurz, C. F., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. Nat. Methods 21, 1770–1772 (2024).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. Nat. Methods 10, 1139–1140 (2013).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Austin, P. C. Am. J. Epidemiol. 172, 1092–1097 (2010).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  4. Chesnaye, N. C. et al. Clin. Kidney J. 15, 14–20 (2021).

  5. Raad, H., Cornelius, V., Chan, S., Williamson, E. & Cro, S. BMC Med. Res. Methodol. 20, 70 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  6. Kurz, C. F. Med. Decis. Making 42, 156–167 (2022).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Martin Krzywinski.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

C.F.K. is employed by Novartis Pharma.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Kurz, C.F., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. Propensity score weighting. Nat Methods 22, 638–640 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-025-02629-y

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-025-02629-y

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing