A Bivariate Binary Model for Testing Dependence in Outcomes

The problem of dependence in the outcome variables has become an increasingly important issue of concern during the past two decades attributable mainly to the increase in the demand for techniques in analyzing repeated measures data. In the past, most of the longitudinal models developed are based on marginal approaches and relatively few are based on conditional models. The joint models are examined mainly to focus on the characterization problems but not much has been employed to focus the covariate dependent models with dependence in the outcomes. This paper develops a new simple procedure to take account of the bivariate binary model with covariate dependence. The model is based on the integration of conditional and marginal models. Test procedures are suggested for testing the dependence in binary outcomes. Simulations are employed to demonstrate the utility of the proposed test procedures in different dependence settings. Finally, an application to the depression data has been shown. All the results confirm that the proposed model for testing the dependence in outcomes can be applied very successfully for a wide variety of situations.