Survival Analysis, Overview

Survival analysis is the study of the distribution of life times, that is, the times from an initiating event (birth, start of treatment, employment in a given job) to some terminal event (death, relapse, disability pension). A distinguishing feature of survival data is the inevitable presence of incomplete observations, particularly when the terminal event for some individuals is not observed; instead, it is only known that this event is at least later than a given point in time: right censoring (see Censored Data). The aims of this entry are to provide a brief historical sketch of the long development of survival analysis and to survey what we have found to be central issues in the current methodology of survival analysis. Necessarily, this entry is rich in crossreferences to other entries that treat specific subjects in more detail. However, we have not attempted to include cross-references to all specific entries within survival analysis.