Distributed Lag Neural Additive Models

Abstract

We introduce Distributed Lag Neural Additive Models (DLNAMs), neural-additive analogues of Distributed Lag Non-linear Models (DLNMs) for learning nonlinear effects distributed over lags. DLNAMs replace a prespecified spline cross-basis with neural components that learn exposure--lag response surfaces, avoiding choices of basis family, dimension, and knot placement while preserving additive interpretability and familiar distributed-lag summaries. Exp-centered input layers, smooth activations, and learned subnetwork mixtures produce smooth, locally adaptive representations; pointwise uncertainty combines a conditional last-layer Laplace approximation with between-member ensemble variation. In simulations, DLNAMs generally outperformed DLNM comparators, including penalized and treed variants, in recovering known response functions, with lower bias, stronger boundary recovery, and better-calibrated cumulative intervals; gains were largest for more demanding functions. The architecture performed consistently across sample sizes, outcome families, lag horizons, and jointly fitted multi-exposure settings, retaining recovery performance as exposures were added; fit-specific changes were largely confined to optimization, and applications recovered established empirical patterns.