Missing data pose challenges to real-life data analysis. Simple ad-hoc fixes, like deletion or mean imputation, only work under highly restrictive conditions, which are often not met in practice. Multiple imputation replaces each missing value by multiple plausible values. The variability between these replacements reflects our ignorance of the true (but missing) value. Each of the completed data set is then analyzed by standard methods, and the results are pooled to obtain unbiased estimates with correct confidence intervals. Multiple imputation is a general approach that also inspires novel solutions to old problems by reformulating the task at hand as a missi ..

Missing data pose challenges to real-life data analysis. Simple ad-hoc fixes, like deletion or mean imputation, only work under highly restrictive conditions, which are often not met in practice. Multiple imputation replaces each missing value by multiple plausible values. The variability between these replacements reflects our ignorance of the true (but missing) value. Each of the completed data set is then analyzed by standard methods, and the results are pooled to obtain unbiased estimates with correct confidence intervals. Multiple imputation is a general approach that also inspires novel solutions to old problems by reformulating the task at hand as a missi ..