# The Brier Score under Administrative Censoring: Problems and Solutions

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.08581 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.08581/

## Key facts

- Cited by 12 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 18 Dec 2019.

## Built on by (most cited first, 12 of 12)

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- [A copula-based boosting model for time-to-event prediction with dependent censoring](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.04869/) (2022)
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- [Identifying and Characterising Response in Clinical Trials: Development and Validation of a Machine Learning Approach in Colorectal Cancer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.00757/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The Brier score is commonly used for evaluating probability predictions. In survival analysis, with right-censored observations of the event times, this score can be weighted by the inverse probability of censoring (IPCW) to retain its original interpretation. It is common practice to estimate the censoring distribution with the Kaplan-Meier estimator, even though it assumes that the censoring distribution is independent of the covariates. This paper discusses the general impact of the censoring estimates on the Brier score and shows that the estimation of the censoring distribution can be problematic. In particular, when the censoring times can be identified from the covariates, the IPCW score is no longer valid. For administratively censored data, where the potential censoring times are known for all individuals, we propose an alternative version of the Brier score. This administrative Brier score does not require estimation of the censoring distribution and is valid even if the censoring times can be identified from the covariates.