An Approach to Survival Analysis when Frailty is Evident

Authors

  • Jude Nwoji Oguejiofor  Department of Computer Science, Waziri Umaru Federal Polytechnic Birnin Kebbi, Nigeria
  • AbubakarBoyi Dalatu  Department of Statistics, Waziri Umaru Federal Polytechnic Birnin Kebbi, Nigeria
  • KabiruYanusa Gorin Dikko  Department of Statistics, Waziri Umaru Federal Polytechnic Birnin Kebbi, Nigeria

Keywords:

Survival Estimation, Empirical Survivor Function Plot, Frailty

Abstract

The problem with survival estimation using traditional life-table method alone is not only grouping of survival times, but also its insensitivity to existence of frailty in population. In this work, an approach has been proposed for the analysis of time from infection to occurrence of an event vis-a-vis the contributions of frailty along with some covariates. The approach involves the use of nonparametric product limit otherwise known as the Kaplan-Meier (KM) to estimate individual survivals and the use of frailty estimation method to estimate the hazard. In a simulation, the life-table and product limit methods were compared using the standard error estimates and plots of the empirical survivor function. While empirical estimates did not show significant differences, the product limit plot is more informative than the life table plots. The result of hazard estimation shows that event is largely caused by the baseline hazard with significant contribution from frailty and little contribution from age. There is also significant association between individual's events possibly as a result of frailty. This procedure will find wider application in survival estimation in a population-based setting.

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International Journal of Scientific Research in Science and Technology

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Published

2015-12-25

Issue

Volume 1, Issue 5, November-December-2015

Section

Research Articles

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

[1]
Jude Nwoji Oguejiofor, AbubakarBoyi Dalatu, KabiruYanusa Gorin Dikko, " An Approach to Survival Analysis when Frailty is Evident, International Journal of Scientific Research in Science and Technology(IJSRST), Online ISSN : 2395-602X, Print ISSN : 2395-6011, Volume 1, Issue 5, pp.163-169, November-December-2015.