{
  "slug": "informative-censoring",
  "term": "Informative censoring",
  "aliases": [
    "Dependent censoring"
  ],
  "definition": "Informative censoring occurs when the observation-ending process conveys information about the event time beyond what the survival analysis accounts for.",
  "note": "Hypothetical storage example: retiring drives because worsening telemetry predicts failure can remove high-risk devices before recorded failure. If the target is failure under continued service rather than time to retirement, treating those withdrawals as ordinary independent censoring can bias an unadjusted survival curve. Record withdrawal reasons and examine sensitivity to the censoring assumptions. Observed event and censoring times alone cannot verify the assumptions that identify the target survival distribution. [overgaard-hansen]",
  "related": [
    "right-censoring",
    "kaplan-meier-estimator",
    "survival-function"
  ],
  "citations": [
    {
      "id": "overgaard-hansen",
      "title": "Overgaard and Hansen: On the assumption of independent right censoring, arXiv:1905.02508v1",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/html/1905.02508v1",
      "accessed": "2026-10-13"
    }
  ],
  "status": "shipping",
  "advantages": [],
  "limitations": [],
  "supersedes": [],
  "supersededBy": [],
  "firstSeen": null,
  "lastSeen": null,
  "updated": "2026-10-13"
}