Bayesian Analysis for Random Effects Models

Random effects models have been widely used to analyze correlated data sets, and Bayesian techniques have emerged as a powerful tool to fit the models. However, there has been scarce literature that systematically reviews and summarizes the recent advances of Bayesian analyses of random effects models. This chapter reviews the use of the Dirichlet process mixture (DPM) prior to approximate the distribution of random errors within the general semiparametric random effects models with parametric random effects for longitudinal data setting and failure time setting separately. In a survival setting with clusters, we propose a new class of nonparametric random effects models which is motivated from the accelerated failure models. We employ a beta process prior to tact clustering and estimation simultaneously. We analyze a new data set integrated from Alzheimer's disease (AD) study to illustrate the presented model and methods.