Machine learning approaches for asthma disease prediction among adults in Sri Lanka

Objectives: Addressing the challenge of cost-effective asthma diagnosis amidst diverse symptom patterns among patients, this study aims to develop a machine learning-based asthma prediction tool for self-detection of asthma. Methods: Data from 6,665 participants in the Sri Lanka Health and Ageing Study (2018-2019) are used for this research. Thirteen machine learning algorithms, including Logistic Regression, Support Vector Machine, Decision Tree, Random Forest, Naïve Bayes, K-Nearest Neighbors, Gradient Boost, XGBoost, AdaBoost, CatBoost, LightGBM, Multi-Layer Perceptron, and Probabilistic Neural Network, are employed. Results: A hybrid version of Logistic Regression and LightGBM outperformed other models, achieving an AUC of 0.9062 and 79.85% sensitivity. Key predictive features for asthma include wheezing, breathlessness with wheezing, shortness of breath attacks, coughing attacks, chest tightness, nasal allergies, physical activity, passive smoking, ethnicity, and residential sector. Conclusion: Combining Logistic Regression and LightGBM models can effectively predict adult asthma based on self-reported symptoms and demographic and behavioural characteristics. The proposed expert system assists clinicians and patients in diagnosing potential asthma cases.