The PLM Procedure

The LSMEANS statement computes and compares least squares means (LS-means) of fixed effects. LS-means are predicted population margins—that is, they estimate the marginal means over a balanced population. In a sense, LS-means are to unbalanced designs as class and subclass arithmetic means are to balanced designs.

Table 7 summarizes the options available in the LSMEANS statement.

Table 7: LSMEANS Statement Options

Option	Description
Construction and Computation of LS-Means
AT	Modifies the covariate value in computing LS-means
BYLEVEL	Computes separate margins
DIFF	Computes differences of LS-means
OM=	Specifies the weighting scheme for LS-means computation as determined by the input data set
SINGULAR=	Tunes estimability checking
Degrees of Freedom and p-Values
ADJUST=	Determines the method of multiple-comparison adjustment of LS-means differences
ALPHA=	Determines the confidence level ()
STEPDOWN	Adjusts multiple-comparison p-values further in a step-down fashion
Statistical Output
ASC	Sorts LS-means in ascending order in results that you display by specifying the LINES option
CL	Constructs confidence limits for means and mean differences
CORR	Displays the correlation matrix of LS-means
COV	Displays the covariance matrix of LS-means
E	Prints the matrix
LINES	Uses connecting lines to indicate nonsignificantly different subsets of LS-means
LINESTABLE	Displays the results of the LINES option as a table
MEANS	Prints the LS-means
PLOTS=	Produces graphs of means and mean comparisons
SEED=	Specifies the seed for computations that depend on random numbers
Generalized Linear Modeling
EXP	Exponentiates and displays estimates of LS-means or LS-means differences
ILINK	Computes and displays estimates and standard errors of LS-means (but not differences) on the inverse linked scale
ODDSRATIO	Reports (simple) differences of least squares means in terms of odds ratios if permitted by the link function

For more information about the syntax of the LSMEANS statement, see the section LSMEANS Statement in Chapter 20, Shared Concepts and Topics.