title: Comparison of state occupation, entry, exit and waiting times in two or more groups based on current status data in a multistate model.
abstract: We propose mean absolute distance-based nonparametric bootstrap tests comparing the occupation probabilities, entry, exit and waiting times in a given state in two or more groups in a multistate model. The state occupied is determined at a single inspection time for each individual. Nonparametric monotonic regression and smoothing are used to uniquely define the various marginal estimators for each group which are then compared via a mean absolute distance criterion. A detailed simulation study shows that the proposed tests all have close to nominal size and reasonable power. An illustrative application to a pubertal development data set obtained from the NHANES III (Analytic and Reporting Guidelines: The Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1988-94). Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1997) is also presented.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, GA, USA.
authors.forename: Ling
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lan
authors.forename: Somnath
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Datta
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000367:Age Factors; D056808:Biostatistics; D002648:Child; D003198:Computer Simulation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009752:Nutritional Status; D011627:Puberty; D012044:Regression Analysis; D018401:Sample Size; D012737:Sex Factors; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology