st: Zero Inflated Negative Binomial model

[Eugene Walls <Eugene.Walls@du.edu>]

I am working with a dataset that contains counts of the number of times that youth in the sample engage in self-harming behaviors (such as cutting). My co-authors and I are interested in using the zero-inflated negative binomial models because (a) we have a sample that has about 74% zeroes and (b) because we are conceptualizing two processes occurring - one that predicts the likelihood of crossing the threshold into self-injurious behavior and one that predicts the number of times of engaging in the behavior. The Vuong test seems to indicate that the ZINB model is a better fit for the data than the NBReg model.

Our question concerns if it is appropriate to use the ZINB because the response set of the variable capturing the number of times of engaging in SIB is not a straight count, but rather a "0 times" "1 time" "2-3 times" "4-5 times" "6-10 times" "11-20 times" "21-49 times" "50 or more times". We have recoded the variable into 0, 1, 2, 4, 6, 11, 21, 50 using the minimum in the category.but if we do that is using the ZINB model problematic?

Thanks
Eugene


 























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