Censoring records that an observation lies in a known set without revealing its exact value. In survival analysis, it commonly bounds an unobserved event time.
An event time is right-censored when it is known only to exceed the last observed follow-up time. Under independent censoring, its likelihood contribution is the survival probability at that time.
An event time is left-censored when it is known only to be no greater than the first observation time.
Doubly censored data leave an event known only to lie outside an observation interval, without revealing whether it occurred before observation began or after observation ended.
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Censoring is a concept in statistics typically associated with survival analysis and reliability engineering. It occurs when the value of a variable is only partially known due to limitations in observation or data collection. This often arises in time-to-event analysis, such as in medical studies where the time until an event (like death, failure, or remission) is of interest, but some individuals do not experience the event during the study period.