Cause-specific mortality prediction in older residents of São Paulo, Brazil: a machine learning approach

Populational ageing has been increasing in a remarkable rate in developing countries. In this scenario, preventive strategies could help to decrease the burden of higher demands for healthcare services. Machine learning algorithms have been increasingly applied for identifying priority candidates for preventive actions, presenting a better predictive performance than traditional parsimonious models.

Data were collected from the Health, Well Being and Aging (SABE) Study, a representative sample of older residents of São Paulo, Brazil. Machine learning algorithms were applied to predict death by diseases of respiratory system (DRS), diseases of circulatory system (DCS), neoplasms and other specific causes within 5 years, using socioeconomic, demographic and health features. The algorithms were trained in a random sample of 70% of subjects, and then tested in the other 30% unseen data.

The outcome with highest predictive performance was death by DRS (AUC-ROC = 0.89), followed by the other specific causes (AUC-ROC = 0.87), DCS (AUC-ROC = 0.67) and neoplasms (AUC-ROC = 0.52). Among only the 25% of individuals with the highest predicted risk of mortality from DRS were included 100% of the actual cases. The machine learning algorithms with the highest predictive performance were light gradient boosted machine and extreme gradient boosting.

The algorithms had a high predictive performance for DRS, but lower for DCS and neoplasms. Mortality prediction with machine learning can improve clinical decisions especially regarding targeted preventive measures for older individuals.