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<article article-type="research-article" dtd-version="1.1" xml:lang="en" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><front><journal-meta><journal-id journal-id-type="publisher-id">SMM</journal-id><journal-id journal-id-type="nlm-ta">Stat Methods Med Res</journal-id><journal-title-group><journal-title>Statistical Methods in Medical Research</journal-title></journal-title-group><issn pub-type="ppub">0962-2802</issn><issn pub-type="epub">1477-0334</issn><publisher><publisher-name>SAGE Publications</publisher-name><publisher-loc>Sage UK: London, England</publisher-loc></publisher></journal-meta><article-meta><article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.1177/09622802211023955</article-id><article-id pub-id-type="publisher-id">10.1177_09622802211023955</article-id><article-categories><subj-group subj-group-type="heading"><subject>Special Issue Articles</subject></subj-group></article-categories><title-group><article-title>Estimating a time-to-event distribution from right-truncated data in an epidemic: A review of methods</article-title></title-group><contrib-group content-type="issue"><contrib contrib-type="guest-editor"><name><surname>De Angelis</surname><given-names>Daniela</given-names></name></contrib><contrib contrib-type="guest-editor"><name><surname>Birrell</surname><given-names>Paul</given-names></name></contrib><contrib contrib-type="guest-editor"><name><surname>Funk</surname><given-names>Sebastian</given-names></name></contrib><contrib contrib-type="guest-editor"><name><surname>House</surname><given-names>Thomas</given-names></name></contrib></contrib-group><contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" corresp="yes"><contrib-id contrib-id-type="orcid">https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3726-5937</contrib-id><name><surname>Seaman</surname><given-names>Shaun R</given-names></name><xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1-09622802211023955">1</xref><xref ref-type="corresp" rid="corresp1-09622802211023955"/></contrib><contrib contrib-type="author"><name><surname>Presanis</surname><given-names>Anne</given-names></name><xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1-09622802211023955">1</xref></contrib><contrib contrib-type="author"><contrib-id contrib-id-type="orcid">https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6656-8913</contrib-id><name><surname>Jackson</surname><given-names>Christopher</given-names></name><xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1-09622802211023955">1</xref></contrib><aff id="aff1-09622802211023955"><label>1</label><institution-wrap><institution-id institution-id-type="Ringgold">47959</institution-id><institution content-type="university">MRC Biostatistics Unit</institution></institution-wrap>, University of Cambridge, UK</aff></contrib-group><author-notes><corresp id="corresp1-09622802211023955">Shaun Seaman, MRC Biostatistics Unit, East Forvie Building, Forvie Site, Robinson Way, Cambridge CB2 0SR, UK. 
Email: <email>shaun.seaman@mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk</email></corresp></author-notes><pub-date pub-type="epub"><day>21</day><month>12</month><year>2021</year></pub-date><volume>31</volume><issue>9</issue><issue-title>Special Issue: Pandemics</issue-title><fpage>1641</fpage><lpage>1655</lpage><permissions><copyright-statement>© The Author(s) 2021</copyright-statement><copyright-year>2021</copyright-year><copyright-holder content-type="sage">SAGE Publications</copyright-holder><license><ali:license_ref start_date="2021-12-21" xmlns:ali="http://www.niso.org/schemas/ali/1.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ali:license_ref><license-p>This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (<ext-link ext-link-type="uri" xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link>) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (<ext-link ext-link-type="uri" xlink:href="https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage">https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage</ext-link>).</license-p></license></permissions><abstract><p>Time-to-event data are right-truncated if only individuals who have experienced the event by a certain time can be included in the sample. For example, we may be interested in estimating the distribution of time from onset of disease symptoms to death and only have data on individuals who have died. This may be the case, for example, at the beginning of an epidemic. Right truncation causes the distribution of times to event in the sample to be biased towards shorter times compared to the population distribution, and appropriate statistical methods should be used to account for this bias. This article is a review of such methods, particularly in the context of an infectious disease epidemic, like COVID-19. We consider methods for estimating the marginal time-to-event distribution, and compare their efficiencies. (Non-)identifiability of the distribution is an important issue with right-truncated data, particularly at the beginning of an epidemic, and this is discussed in detail. We also review methods for estimating the effects of covariates on the time to event. An illustration of the application of many of these methods is provided, using data on individuals who had died with coronavirus disease by 5 April 2020.</p></abstract><kwd-group><kwd>Coronavirus disease</kwd><kwd>Cox regression</kwd><kwd>failure time</kwd><kwd>identifiability</kwd><kwd>relative efficiency</kwd><kwd>right-truncation</kwd><kwd>survival analysis</kwd></kwd-group><funding-group specific-use="FundRef"><award-group id="award1-09622802211023955"><funding-source id="funding1-09622802211023955"><institution-wrap><institution>Medical Research Council</institution><institution-id institution-id-type="FundRef">https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000265</institution-id></institution-wrap></funding-source><award-id rid="funding1-09622802211023955">MC_UU_00002/10</award-id><award-id rid="funding1-09622802211023955">MC_UU_00002/11</award-id></award-group></funding-group><custom-meta-group><custom-meta><meta-name>typesetter</meta-name><meta-value>ts19</meta-value></custom-meta></custom-meta-group></article-meta></front></article>