Analysis of recurrent failure times: A time-dependent Yule process approach

Chung-Chi Chang, The University of Texas School of Public Health

Abstract

Analysis of recurrent events has been widely discussed in medical, health services, insurance, and engineering areas in recent years. This research proposes to use a nonhomogeneous Yule process with the proportional intensity assumption to model the hazard function on recurrent events data and the associated risk factors. This method assumes that repeated events occur for each individual, with given covariates, according to a nonhomogeneous Yule process with intensity function λx(t) = λ 0(t) · exp( x′β). One of the advantages of using a non-homogeneous Yule process for recurrent events is that it assumes that the recurrent rate is proportional to the number of events that occur up to time t. Maximum likelihood estimation is used to provide estimates of the parameters in the model, and a generalized scoring iterative procedure is applied in numerical computation. Model comparisons between the proposed method and other existing recurrent models are addressed by simulation. One example concerning recurrent myocardial infarction events compared between two distinct populations, Mexican-American and Non-Hispanic Whites in the Corpus Christi Heart Project is examined.

Subject Area

Biostatistics|Public health

Recommended Citation

Chang, Chung-Chi, "Analysis of recurrent failure times: A time-dependent Yule process approach" (1999). Texas Medical Center Dissertations (via ProQuest). AAI9981800.
https://digitalcommons.library.tmc.edu/dissertations/AAI9981800

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