# Kaplan–Meier survival curves vs Nelson–Aalen cumulative hazard curves: interpretation

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

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: Do the y-values have any intuitive interpretation in this case? Are there any advantages to the latter plot in a presentation?

• 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. May 30 '17 at 7:51
• 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. May 31 '17 at 10:30
• 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/… May 31 '17 at 13:14