Deep Learning-based Time-to-event Analysis of Depression and Asthma using the All of Us Research Program

While there is a growing recognition of the association between depression and asthma, few studies have leveraged deep learning-based (DL-based) models in a retrospective cohort study with a large sample size. We analyzed the association between depression and asthma among 239,161 participants of the All of Us Research Program through DL-based, logistic regression, and Cox Proportional Hazards (CoxPH) models. We used SHAP values to help interpret DL-based models and c-index to evaluate model performance. Results suggest a significant odds ratio for depression in asthma. The c-indices for the CoxPH, DeepSurv, and DeepHit models were 0.619, 0.625, and 0.596, respectively. SHAP indicated a different set of important variables when compared with the CoxPH model. In conclusion, we provide strong evidence of a positive relationship between depression and asthma. Also, DL-based models did not outperform the CoxPH model on the c-index. Sex at birth and income may play important roles in occurrence of depression in asthma patients.