Survival analysis is the study of the distribution of life times, i.e. the times from an initiating event (birth, diagnosis, start of treatment) to some terminal event (relapse, death). It is most prominently (but not only) used in the biomedical sciences. A special feature of survival data is that it takes time to observe the event of interest. As a result for a number of subjects the event is not observed, but instead we know that it has not taken place yet. This phenomenon is called censoring and it requires special statistical methods.
Literature
Klein JP, Moeschberger ML (1997). Survival Analysis: Techniques for Censored and Truncated Data. Springer, New York.
Remark
Weekly 2 hours of lectures, 2 hours of computer practical with R. Towards the end of the course, the students will perform a data analysis with survival data and submit a written report, which will be graded and count for 1/3 of the final grade. A written exam will count for 2/3.