st: AGE at event occurrence as the time variable in mortality analysisrather than time between entry into follow up an event occurrence

[uri goldbourt <goldbu1@post.tau.ac.il>]

In an epidemiological study where we follow up very old individuals the
importance of time till event (say, mortality) pales in comparison to the
actual age of the individual when the endpoint event occurred. Using stcox
(for example) we would seek to estimate the event hazard ratios associated
with several predictors. In a cohort which spans over a meaningful age range
the age when the event occurs rather than how long it took to occur since
that person entered follow up which will matter. So instead of the later the
better we would like to say the older the better.

What is the accurate way to stset the data so that age at event(assuming of
course it is included for each event) become the time variable?

Thanks, UG

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