The Difference Between Link Functions and Data Transformations

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by Kim Love, PhD

Generalized linear models—and generalized linear mixed models—are called generalized linear because they connect a model’s outcome to its predictors in a linear way. The function used to make this connection is called a link function. Link functions sounds like an exotic term, but they’re actually much simpler than they sound.

For example, Poisson regression (commonly used for outcomes that are counts) makes use of a natural log link function as follows:

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