Nonparametric estimators of risk

Readings

• Clark TG, Bradburn MJ, Love SB, Altman DG. Survival analysis part I: basic concepts and first analyses. British journal of cancer. 2003 Jul;89(2):232-8.

Notes

The notes for today’s class are available via Teams.

Videos

Recordings of lectures are available on the EPID 722 Sakai site.

Notes

As a self check, reflect on how what you learned helps answer the following questions:

1. What is immortal person time?
2. What is risk? What is survival?
3. What is the hazard?
4. What is a nonparametric estimator and how does it differ from a parametric estimator?
5. How does the Kaplan-Meier account for late entry and censoring?
6. What are the pros and cons of allowing late entry?
7. How can we assess the possible effects of informative drop out?
8. What is a line diagram and how is it drawn?
9. Fill in a table like Table 2 in the Cole and Hudgens paper in AIDS given sample data
10. When is censoring informative?
11. What do we assume about censoring when using the Kaplan-Meier?
12. What is the difference between a parameter and an estimator?

Optional Readings:

• Cole SR, Hudgens MG. Survival analysis in infectious disease research: describing events in time. AIDS (London, England). 2010 Oct 23;24(16):2423.

Exercise

This week’s exercise is available on the EPID 722 Teams site. The exercise questions can be found under /Class Materials/Exercises/Exercise 2/Exercise 2.docx. Sample SAS and R code can be found in the same folder.

Questions

Please use the form below to submit your questions about this week’s reading.

NOTE: Please submit your question by Wednesday at 5pm.