Survival Analysis: When Do Events Occur? What Predicts Those Events?

Family researchers often have questions about the risk of event occurrence and what predicts that event. We might investigate if newly retired individuals are at risk for developing depression. If so, when are they most at risk? Is this risk associated with their health status? With their marital status? Is it the same for males versus females? Such questions, about whether and when events occur and what predicts that occurrence, pose particular methodological challenges and are best addressed via a statistical method know as survival analysis. I will discuss and present these methods  used to examine these questions.

Objectives

1. Attendees will understand the usefulness of survival analysis. 2. Attendees will learn how to conduct a survival analysis. 3. Attendees will learn how to present the findings of a survival analysis in a manner that will allow their audiences to understand the results and use them in their own practice or research.