Customer Reviews

Statistical Models and Methods for Lifetime Data (Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics)

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When I started my biostatistical career in 1995 at a medical device company this was the book I relied on for valuable reference information on life tables and survival curves. This book is particularly good at dealing with nonparametric methods and covering the distinctions between the various types of censoring.

There are now also a number of other good books with more recent developments. Nelson's book was a competitor. Under the subject of reliability the same important paramatric models are covered in such books as the one by Mann, Schafer and Singpurwalla, the recent text by Meeker and Escobar and the book by Blischke and Murthy. Hougaard covers multivariate models.

This is one of the best books about survival data analysis, or lifetime analysis. This book covers univariate survival data analysis, providing necessary mathematical details. But it does not deal with multivariate cases. If you are climbing from the univariate toward multivariate, and taking a rest, this is perfect. This books is kind. However, watch two warnings. If you need accompanying software manuals, this book doesn't provide S-Plus, SAS, Stata or other advanced software code. Second, if you need competing risk or multivariate model, try others, including Hougaard or Cox. Elisa T. Lee's book presents less detail, but is still excellent, or may be better, depending on reader's needs.

I bought this book for "life data analysis class" (it was required). Unfortunately the book has not been as helpful as the professor and the students thought it might be. You have to go through many chapters to understand one concept, and according to my professor the second version of the book is not better than the first one.
If you are into the field of life data analysis it might be good but I don't recommend the book for someone just starting.