Censoring (statistics)

Common card · No. 482352

In statistics, censoring is a condition in which the value of a measurement or observation is only partially known. For example, suppose a study is conducted to measure the impact of a drug on mortality rate. In such a study, it may be known that an individual's age at death is at least 75 years (but may be more). Such a situation could occur if the individual withdrew from the study at age 75, or if the individual is currently alive at the age of 75. Censoring also occurs when a value occurs outside the range of a measuring instrument. For example, a bathroom scale might only measure up to 140 kg, after which it rolls over 0 and continues to count up from there. If a 160 kg individual is weighed using the scale, the observer would only know that the individual's weight is 20 mod 140 kg (in addition to 160kg, they could weigh 300kg, 440kg, and so on). The problem of censored data, in which the observed value of some variable is partially known, is related to the problem of missing data...

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