Workshop on Survival Analysis for Cancer Epidemiology

The School of Mathematics held a successful workshop on Survival Analysis for Cancer Epidemiology jointly organized by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the School of Mathematics. The workshop provided training on both the theory and application of special survival analysis techniques, namely net survival methods and excess hazard models Participants were introduced to population-based cancer survival research and its importance for policy-making. The distinction between this setting and the classical survival setting were elucidated.

With the epidemiological shift in low and middle-income countries to chronic diseases such as cancer, there is a need for Biostatisticians in public health to gain expertise in the analysis of such data. Analysis of population-based cancer survival data is more complex than survival analysis in other settings, as there is the additional and unique challenge of unreliability or even complete unavailability of the cause of death. A whole range of have therefore been developed to analyse such data, and derive quantities of interest to patients, clinicians and policy-makers.

The Main speakers of the workshop were Prof. Bernard Rachet, Dr Aurelien Belot, of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

Participants were drawn from different academic Institutions and Organizations within the country.

The objectives of the workshop were to:

• Appreciate the role of population-based cancer survival research in informing policy
• Distinguish between the classical survival analysis and the population-based cancer survival analysis setting
• Apply non-parametric net survival methods and interpret results
• Formulate, estimate and interpret excess hazard models.

The workshop main sponsors were: London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, The International Society for Clinical Biostatistics, The DELTAS Africa Sub-Saharan Africa Consortium for Advanced Biostatistics.