zhongmiao wang
2007-Mar-27 14:26 UTC
[R] what is the difference between survival analysis and logistic regression with a timing variable?
Hello: If the question is how likely an event will occur at a give time point, can we use logistic regression with time t as a predictor variable? For example, if the data is ID Gender Tenure Churn 1 M 17 0 2 M 3 1 3 M 6 0 4 F 10 1 5 F 9 0 6 F 20 1 We want to predict the likelihood that an insurance policy holder will churn at a given tenure, can we build the model as: logit (churn=1)=b0+b1*Gender+b2*tenure? or we have to use survival analysis for discrete time? Thank you. Best Regards Zhongmiao Wang Senior Analyst RMG Connect [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
Stephen Weigand
2007-Mar-28 03:17 UTC
[R] what is the difference between survival analysis and logistic regression with a timing variable?
On 3/27/07, zhongmiao wang <zhongmiao at gmail.com> wrote:> Hello: > > If the question is how likely an event will occur at a give time point, can > we use logistic regression with time t as a predictor variable? For example, > if the data is > ID Gender Tenure Churn > 1 M 17 0 > 2 M 3 1 > 3 M 6 0 > 4 F 10 1 > 5 F 9 0 > 6 F 20 1 > > We want to predict the likelihood that an insurance policy holder will churn > at a given tenure, can we build the model as: > > logit (churn=1)=b0+b1*Gender+b2*tenure? > > or we have to use survival analysis for discrete time? Thank you. > > Best Regards > Zhongmiao Wang > Senior Analyst > RMG Connect > >I'd guess you've got censored data so survival analysis is more appropriate. If you've followed a customer for only four months and she hasn't churned (switched companies?) yet, you only know her time to churning is > 4 months, but not exactly how long it is. So you need survival (time to event) methods that account for this partial information. Hope this helps, Stephen Rochester, MN