An illustration of survival analysis: Factors affecting contraceptive discontinuation among American teenagers.

This article describes the methodology of survival analysis, which can be used to examine data in which the dependent variable consists of lengths of time between a specific starting and an ending point. These lengths of time are called survival times. To illustrate this method, the authors analyze the duration of oral contraceptive use among sexually active black and white teenage women. The starting point here Is the reported time that the pill was first used, and the end point is first discontinuation of the pill.