Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 207 6 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
In a competing risks model, the first event has time and type ; observing one type prevents another type from being the first event for that individual. Its cause-specific hazard isFor absolutely continuous event times the total hazard function is , giving the event-free survivor function . Since an event of type near has unconditional density , its cumulative incidence function satisfiesThis cause-specific hazard to cumulative incidence formula does not require independent latent times for the competing causes. In general is not , since that expression ignores removal by other causes.
Put , and , with . HereIntegrating separately before and after gives, for ,After , only type can occur, so the second term is the fraction event-free at multiplied by their subsequent event probability. The expressions agree at . If , both incidence functions are identically zero; if , this formula gives .