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I have a right-censored data set. I plot a Kaplan–Meier survival curve using R: Kaplan-Meier survival curve

The y-values are easy to interpret, e.g. about 45% of the population will survive 500 days.

Now I plot the Nelson–Aalen cumulative hazard curve by setting the parameter fun="cumhaz" in the plot function: Nelson–Aalen cumulative hazard curve Do the y-values have any intuitive interpretation in this case? Are there any advantages to the latter plot in a presentation?

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    $\begingroup$ One "intuitive" interpretation of the cumulative hazards I know of is: if we assume that a subject under observations is immediately revived when he dies then the cumulative hazards at time t measures the expected amount of observed deaths. $\endgroup$
    – Jorne Biccler
    May 30, 2017 at 7:51
  • $\begingroup$ Does this mean that when y=1, x is the expected (mean) lifetime? I thought it was not possible to calculate the expected lifetime when censored data is present. $\endgroup$
    – matthiash
    May 31, 2017 at 10:30
  • $\begingroup$ No that doesn't seem right to me, but I dug around a bit and found this stackexchange post which explains the cummulative hazards better than I can, stats.stackexchange.com/questions/60238/… $\endgroup$
    – Jorne Biccler
    May 31, 2017 at 13:14

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