title: Analyzing multivariate survival data using composite likelihood and flexible parametric modeling of the hazard functions.
abstract: In this paper, we model multivariate time-to-event data by composite likelihood of pairwise frailty likelihoods and marginal hazards using natural cubic splines. Both right- and interval-censored data are considered. The suggested approach is applied on two types of family studies using the gamma- and stable frailty distribution: The first study is on adoption data where the association between survival in families of adopted children and their adoptive and biological parents is studied. The second study is a cross-sectional study of the occurrence of back and neck pain in twins, illustrating the methodology in the context of genetic epidemiology.
authors.affiliation: Southern Center for National Clinical Databases, Odense University Hospital, Sdr. Boulevard 29, Entrance 101, 3rd floor, DK-5000 Odense C, Denmark. jan.nielsen2@ouh.regionsyddanmark.dk
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Nielsen
authors.forename: Erik T
authors.initials: ET
authors.lastname: Parner
mesh_terms: D000300:Adoption; D001416:Back Pain / Q000235:genetics; D056808:Biostatistics; D016208:Databases, Factual; D004200:Diseases in Twins / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D016013:Likelihood Functions; D008136:Longevity / Q000235:genetics; D015233:Models, Statistical; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D019547:Neck Pain / Q000235:genetics; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D016019:Survival Analysis; D018433:Twin Studies as Topic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data