first.event: first.event

In tvtools: Comprehensive Tools for Panel Data Analysis - 'tvtools'

first.event

Description

Calculates the time to the first occurrence of specified events for each subject in a panel data structure. This function is particularly useful for longitudinal data analysis where the timing of first events is crucial for subsequent analyses.

Usage

first.event(
  dat,
  id.name,
  outcome.names,
  t1.name,
  append.to.table = FALSE,
  event.name = "first.event"
)

Arguments

dat	A data frame structured as panel data.
id.name	The character name of the identifying variable within dat, used to track subjects across multiple rows.
outcome.names	A character vector of variable names from dat, expected to be binary, representing the events of interest. The function determines the first time each outcome becomes true (1) for each unique id.
t1.name	The character name of the time variable within dat representing the start (left endpoint) of observation intervals.
append.to.table	A logical indicating whether to append the calculated first event times as new columns to the original data.frame (TRUE) or return them as a separate data frame (FALSE).
event.name	The name to give the event time columns when they are appended to the data, specifically for the first event times.

Value

If append.to.table is FALSE, the function returns a data table with the calculated times to the first event for each subject and specified outcome, keyed by the id.name. Each outcome will have its own column named according to the event.name parameter, appended with the outcome name (e.g., "outcome.first.event" for first event times). If append.to.table is TRUE, the original data table is returned with these new columns appended. This facilitates detailed analysis on the timing of first events in relation to the subjects' overall observation periods within the panel data structure.

tvtools documentation built on Oct. 8, 2024, 5:09 p.m.