Survival Analysis- What is it?

Part 1- And How can it solve my business problems?

The Origin Story

As ironic as it may sound, but one of the AI modeling methods powering social media behavior of millennials, has been around for almost half a millenia!

This curve created in 1669 (without matplotlib :), tried to answer few simple questions viz.; how many people would survive till old age? What was a person’s chance of surviving past 20? Past 36?

This is survival analysis! We are trying to estimate this curve — only the outcome can be any binary event, not just death.It tells us “when to worry?”

“When to Worry” Modelling

The survival analysis is also known as “time to event analysis”. It’s all about when to start worrying? Only if I know when things will die or fail then I will be happier …and can have a better life by planning ahead !