← Statistics for Mathematical Biology

Survival analysis

Survival analysis studies time until an event, such as death, recovery, relapse or failure.

Survival function

For event time \(T\),

\[S(t)=P(T>t).\]

Hazard

The hazard describes the instantaneous event rate among individuals who have survived to time \(t\):

\[h(t)=\lim_{\Delta t\to0}\frac{P(t\le T<t+\Delta t\mid T\ge t)}{\Delta t}.\]

Censoring

If an individual has not experienced the event before observation ends, the exact event time may be unknown. Survival methods can incorporate such right-censored observations under appropriate assumptions.

Key idea. Survival analysis uses both whether an event occurs and how long it takes to occur.