The phrase "a useful proxy for" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when discussing a substitute or stand-in that provides a good representation or indication of something else.
Example: "In this study, we found that the average temperature is a useful proxy for predicting the health of the ecosystem."
Alternatives: "an effective substitute for" or "a reliable indicator of".
GFP was used as a useful proxy for pharmaceutical transgenes.
Reuters calculated the numbers released by the national energy administration suggest that electricity use – often seen as a useful proxy for economic activity in a country where GDP statistics are not widely trusted – dropped 2.1% compared with 2014.
The work has shown that IRT images of an animal's eye temperature may be a useful proxy for core temperature and could be used to detect pyrexia as an indicator for selecting animals for closer examination.
Despite these limitations, Ascaris IgE responses remain a useful proxy for immunological and epidemiological studies, and are a standard and widely used indication of Ascaris exposure/infections.
The auto industry has historically been a useful proxy for the overall economy.
Yields are a useful proxy for the riskiness of a bond and, therefore, the creditworthiness of a country's economy.
In addition, this study demonstrates the utility of logic modeling for environmental planning and management, and suggests that the process of setting specific pollutant reduction goals is a useful proxy measure for reporting progress towards improvements in environmental outcomes when long-term environmental data are not available.
This small difference suggests that pregnancy related deaths could be a useful proxy indicator for maternal deaths in similar contexts where cause of death data is unavailable.
This suggests that this relatively simple measure may be a useful proxy measure for primary care-based studies that are exploring a range of outcomes and need a case-mix measure to account for multimorbidity amongst participants.
Therefore, the DRI for E coli is a useful proxy as a DRI for UTIs.
It may be simply that fertility rates are a pretty useful proxy for wealth rates: richer people produce fewer children.
