The Statistical Analysis of Multivariate Failure Time Data : A Marginal Modeling Approach

Though much has been written on multivariate failure time data analysis methods, a unified approach to this topic has yet to be communicated. This book aims to fill that gap through a novel focus on marginal hazard rates and cross ratio modeling. Readers will find the content useful for instruction, for application in collaborative research and as a source of novel research concepts. Many of the illustrations are from population disease studies which should interest epidemiologists and population scientists.

The Statistical Analysis of Multivariate Failure Time Data: A Marginal Modeling Approach provides an innovative look at methods for the analysis of correlated failure times. The focus is on the use of marginal single and marginal double failure hazard rate estimators for the extraction of regression information. For example, in a context of randomized trial or cohort studies, the results go beyond that obtained by analyzing each failure time outcome in a univariate fashion. The book is addressed to researchers, practitioners, and graduate students, and can be used as a reference or as a graduate course text.

Much of the literature on the analysis of censored correlated failure time data uses frailty or copula models to allow for residual dependencies among failure times, given covariates. In contrast, this book provides a detailed account of recently developed methods for the simultaneous estimation of marginal single and dual outcome hazard rate regression parameters, with emphasis on multiplicative (Cox) models. Illustrations are provided of the utility of these methods using Women’s Health Initiative randomized controlled trial data of menopausal hormones and of a low-fat dietary pattern intervention. As byproducts, these methods provide flexible semiparametric estimators of pairwise bivariate survivor functions at specified covariate histories, as well as semiparametric estimators of cross ratio and concordance functions given covariates. The presentation also describes how these innovative methods may extend to handle issues of dependent censorship, missing and mismeasured covariates, and joint modeling of failure times and covariates, setting the stage for additional theoretical and applied developments. This book extends and continues the style of the classic Statistical Analysis of Failure Time Data by Kalbfleisch and Prentice.

Ross L. Prentice is Professor of Biostatistics at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. He is the recipient of COPSS Presidents and Fisher awards, the AACR Epidemiology/Prevention and Team Science awards, and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Shanshan Zhao is a Principal Investigator at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.