This book provides an introduction to multistate event history analysis. It is an extension of survival analysis, in which a single terminal event (endpoint) is considered and the time-to-event is studied. Multistate models focus on life histories or trajectories, conceptualized as sequences of states and sequences of transitions between states. Life histories are modeled as realizations of continuous-time Markov processes. The model parameters, transition rates, are estimated from data on event counts and populations at risk, using the statistical theory of counting processes. The Comprehensive R Network Archive (CRAN) includes several packages for multistate modeling. This book is about Biograph. The package is designed to (a) enhance exploratory analysis of life histories and (b) make multistate modeling accessible. The package incorporates utilities that connect to several packages for multistate modeling, including survival, eha, Epi, mvna,, mstate, msm, and TraMineR for sequence analysis. The book is a ‘hands-on’ presentation of Biograph and the packages listed. It is written from the perspective of the user. To help the user master the techniques and the software, a single data set is used to illustrate the methods and software. It is the subsample of the German Life History Survey, which was also used by Blossfeld and Rohwer in their popular textbook on event history modeling. Another data set, the Netherlands Family and Fertility Survey, is used to illustrate how Biograph can assist in answering questions on life paths of cohorts and individuals. The book is suitable as a textbook for graduate courses on event history analysis and introductory courses on competing risks and multistate models. It may also be used as a self-study book. The R code used in the book is available online. Frans Willekens is affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) in Rostock, Germany. He is Emeritus Professor of Demography at the University of Groningen, a Honorary Fellow of the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI) in the Hague, and a Research Associate of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria. He is a member of Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). He has contributed to the modeling and simulation of life histories, mainly in the context of population forecasting.

Multistate Models for the Analysis of Life History Data provides the first comprehensive treatment of multistate modeling and analysis, including parametric, nonparametric and semiparametric methods applicable to many types of life history data. Special models such as illness-death, competing risks and progressive processes are considered, as well as more complex models. The book provides both theoretical development and illustrations of analysis based on data from randomized trials and observational cohort studies in health research. It features: Discusses a wide range of applications of multistate models, Presents methods for both continuously and intermittently observed life history processes, Gives a thorough discussion of conditionally independent censoring and observation processes, Discusses models with random effects and joint models for two or more multistate processes, Discusses and illustrates software for multistate analysis that is available in R, Target audience includes those engaged in research and applications involving multistate models.

Multistate Models for the Analysis of Life History Data provides the first comprehensive treatment of multistate modeling and analysis, including parametric, nonparametric and semiparametric methods applicable to many types of life history data. Special models such as illness-death, competing risks and progressive processes are considered, as well as more complex models. The book provides both theoretical development and illustrations of analysis based on data from randomized trials and observational cohort studies in health research. It features: Discusses a wide range of applications of multistate models, Presents methods for both continuously and intermittently observed life history processes, Gives a thorough discussion of conditionally independent censoring and observation processes, Discusses models with random effects and joint models for two or more multistate processes, Discusses and illustrates software for multistate analysis that is available in R, Target audience includes those engaged in research and applications involving multistate models.

This book covers competing risks and multistate models, sometimes summarized as event history analysis. These models generalize the analysis of time to a single event (survival analysis) to analysing the timing of distinct terminal events (competing risks) and possible intermediate events (multistate models). Both R and multistate methods are promoted with a focus on nonparametric methods.

This open access book shows how to use sensitivity analysis in demography. It presents new methods for individuals, cohorts, and populations, with applications to humans, other animals, and plants. The analyses are based on matrix formulations of age-classified, stage-classified, and multistate population models. Methods are presented for linear and nonlinear, deterministic and stochastic, and time-invariant and time-varying cases. Readers will discover results on the sensitivity of statistics of longevity, life disparity, occupancy times, the net reproductive rate, and statistics of Markov chain models in demography. They will also see applications of sensitivity analysis to population growth rates, stable population structures, reproductive value, equilibria under immigration and nonlinearity, and population cycles. Individual stochasticity is a theme throughout, with a focus that goes beyond expected values to include variances in demographic outcomes. The calculations are easily and accurately implemented in matrix-oriented programming languages such as Matlab or R. Sensitivity analysis will help readers create models to predict the effect of future changes, to evaluate policy effects, and to identify possible evolutionary responses to the environment. Complete with many examples of the application, the book will be of interest to researchers and graduate students in human demography and population biology. The material will also appeal to those in mathematical biology and applied mathematics.

Survival analysis generally deals with analysis of data arising from clinical trials. Censoring, truncation, and missing data create analytical challenges and the statistical methods and inference require novel and different approaches for analysis. Statistical properties, essentially asymptotic ones, of the estimators and tests are aptly handled in the counting process framework which is drawn from the larger arm of stochastic calculus. With explosion of data generation during the past two decades, survival data has also enlarged assuming a gigantic size. Most statistical methods developed before the millennium were based on a linear approach even in the face of complex nature of survival data. Nonparametric nonlinear methods are best envisaged in the Machine Learning school. This book attempts to cover all these aspects in a concise way. Survival Analysis offers an integrated blend of statistical methods and machine learning useful in analysis of survival data. The purpose of the offering is to give an exposure to the machine learning trends for lifetime data analysis. Features: Classical survival analysis techniques for estimating statistical functional and hypotheses testing Regression methods covering the popular Cox relative risk regression model, Aalen’s additive hazards model, etc. Information criteria to facilitate model selection including Akaike, Bayes, and Focused Penalized methods Survival trees and ensemble techniques of bagging, boosting, and random survival forests A brief exposure of neural networks for survival data R program illustration throughout the book

Applied Survival Analysis Using R covers the main principles of survival analysis, gives examples of how it is applied, and teaches how to put those principles to use to analyze data using R as a vehicle. Survival data, where the primary outcome is time to a specific event, arise in many areas of biomedical research, including clinical trials, epidemiological studies, and studies of animals. Many survival methods are extensions of techniques used in linear regression and categorical data, while other aspects of this field are unique to survival data. This text employs numerous actual examples to illustrate survival curve estimation, comparison of survivals of different groups, proper accounting for censoring and truncation, model variable selection, and residual analysis. Because explaining survival analysis requires more advanced mathematics than many other statistical topics, this book is organized with basic concepts and most frequently used procedures covered in earlier chapters, with more advanced topics near the end and in the appendices. A background in basic linear regression and categorical data analysis, as well as a basic knowledge of calculus and the R system, will help the reader to fully appreciate the information presented. Examples are simple and straightforward while still illustrating key points, shedding light on the application of survival analysis in a way that is useful for graduate students, researchers, and practitioners in biostatistics.