A Short Introduction to Survival Analysis

Survival analysis has become a widely used methodology in diverse fields of research such as medicine, economics and political science. This script gives a brief introduction to these statistical methods. It is meant to serve as a self-learning text, combining the basic theoretical background of survival analysis with practical applications. Moreover, it provides some recommendations on the basic literature as well as hints for reading on more advanced topics. It is intended for students beginning to study survival analysis as a companion to the introductory literature. The theoretical background of this script is mainly based on Alisson (2004), Kiefer (1988) as well as Kleinbaum and Klein (2005) while the practical applications build on Fox and Weisberg (2011). *I am grateful to Thomas Braendle, Thorsten Henne, and Reto Odermatt for their helpful comments. **University of Basel, Faculty of Business and Economics, Peter-Merian-Weg 6, 4002 Basel, Switzerland, phone: 0041-(0)61 267 33 03, [email protected]