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Early Stage Machine Learning-Based Prediction of US County Vulnerability to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Machine Learning Approach.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:The rapid spread of COVID-19 means that government and health services providers have little time to plan and design effective response policies. It is therefore important to quickly provide accurate predictions of how vulnerable geographic regions such as counties are to the spread of this virus. OBJECTIVE:The aim of this study is to develop county-level prediction around near future disease movement for COVID-19 occurrences using publicly available data. METHODS:We estimated county-level COVID-19 occurrences for the period March 14 to 31, 2020, based on data fused from multiple publicly available sources inclusive of health statistics, demographics, and geographical features. We developed a three-stage model using XGBoost, a machine learning algorithm, to quantify the probability of COVID-19 occurrence and estimate the number of potential occurrences for unaffected counties. Finally, these results were combined to predict the county-level risk. This risk was then used as an estimated after-five-day-vulnerability of the county. RESULTS:The model predictions showed a sensitivity over 71% and specificity over 94% for models built using data from March 14 to 31, 2020. We found that population, population density, percentage of people aged >70 years, and prevalence of comorbidities play an important role in predicting COVID-19 occurrences. We observed a positive association at the county level between urbanicity and vulnerability to COVID-19. CONCLUSIONS:The developed model can be used for identification of vulnerable counties and potential data discrepancies. Limited testing facilities and delayed results introduce significant variation in reported cases, which produces a bias in the model.

SUBMITTER: Mehta M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7490002 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Early Stage Machine Learning-Based Prediction of US County Vulnerability to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Machine Learning Approach.

Mehta Mihir M Julaiti Juxihong J Griffin Paul P Kumara Soundar S

JMIR public health and surveillance 20200911 3

<h4>Background</h4>The rapid spread of COVID-19 means that government and health services providers have little time to plan and design effective response policies. It is therefore important to quickly provide accurate predictions of how vulnerable geographic regions such as counties are to the spread of this virus.<h4>Objective</h4>The aim of this study is to develop county-level prediction around near future disease movement for COVID-19 occurrences using publicly available data.<h4>Methods</h ...[more]

PMID: 32784193

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Project description:BackgroundSince the beginning of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the development of predictive models has sparked relevant interest due to the initial lack of knowledge about diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis. The present study aimed at developing a model, through a machine learning approach, to predict intensive care unit (ICU) mortality in COVID-19 patients based on predefined clinical parameters.ResultsObservational multicenter cohort study. All COVID-19 adult patients admitted to 25 ICUs belonging to the VENETO ICU network (February 28th 2020-april 4th 2021) were enrolled. Patients admitted to the ICUs before 4th March 2021 were used for model training ("training set"), while patients admitted after the 5th of March 2021 were used for external validation ("test set 1"). A further group of patients ("test set 2"), admitted to the ICU of IRCCS Ca' Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico of Milan, was used for external validation. A SuperLearner machine learning algorithm was applied for model development, and both internal and external validation was performed. Clinical variables available for the model were (i) age, gender, sequential organ failure assessment score, Charlson Comorbidity Index score (not adjusted for age), Palliative Performance Score; (ii) need of invasive mechanical ventilation, non-invasive mechanical ventilation, O2 therapy, vasoactive agents, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, continuous venous-venous hemofiltration, tracheostomy, re-intubation, prone position during ICU stay; and (iii) re-admission in ICU. One thousand two hundred ninety-three (80%) patients were included in the "training set", while 124 (8%) and 199 (12%) patients were included in the "test set 1" and "test set 2," respectively. Three different predictive models were developed. Each model included different sets of clinical variables. The three models showed similar predictive performances, with a training balanced accuracy that ranged between 0.72 and 0.90, while the cross-validation performance ranged from 0.75 to 0.85. Age was the leading predictor for all the considered models.ConclusionsOur study provides a useful and reliable tool, through a machine learning approach, for predicting ICU mortality in COVID-19 patients. In all the estimated models, age was the variable showing the most important impact on mortality.

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Dataset Information

Early Stage Machine Learning-Based Prediction of US County Vulnerability to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Machine Learning Approach.

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Early Stage Machine Learning-Based Prediction of US County Vulnerability to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Machine Learning Approach.

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