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Multi-level models

  • The concept is that some effects happen at various levels.
  • Example: your health depends on a hierarchy of the health of your cells, organs, you as a whole, your family, city and the world you live in.
  • Your wealth depends on your own work, that your parents did, what your grandparents did etc.
  • Multi-level models attemt to model and account for these interdependencies.

Modeling multiple levels

  • You must identify the factors that affect the ourcome you're trying to predict at each level.
  • For example - SAT scores might be predicted based on the genetics of individual children, the home environment, the crime rate of the neighborhood they live in, the quality of the teachers, the funding of the school district and the education policies of the state.
  • Some of these factors affect more than one level. For example, crime rate might influence the home environment too.