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Accepted for/Published in: JMIR AI

Date Submitted: Feb 13, 2025
Open Peer Review Period: Feb 13, 2025 - Apr 10, 2025
Date Accepted: Apr 1, 2025
(closed for review but you can still tweet)

The final, peer-reviewed published version of this preprint can be found here:

Identifying New Risk Associations Between Chronic Physical Illness and Mental Health Disorders in China: Machine Learning Approach to a Retrospective Population Analysis

Liang L, Liu T, Ollier W, Peng Y, Lu Y, Che C

Identifying New Risk Associations Between Chronic Physical Illness and Mental Health Disorders in China: Machine Learning Approach to a Retrospective Population Analysis

JMIR AI 2025;4:e72599

DOI: 10.2196/72599

PMID: 40611696

PMCID: 12231344

New Risk Associations Between Chronic Physical Illness and Mental Health Disorders revealed by Machine Learning: A Chinese Population Study

  • Lizhong Liang; 
  • Tianci Liu; 
  • William Ollier; 
  • Yonghong Peng; 
  • Yao Lu; 
  • Chao Che

ABSTRACT

The mechanisms underlying the mutual relationships between chronic physical illnesses and mental health disorders, which potentially explain their association, remain unclear. Furthermore, how patterns of this comorbidity evolve over time are under-investigated significantly. Here, four Machine Learning models were used to model and analyze the intricate interplay between mental health disorders and chronic physical illnesses. This analysis facilitated an investigation of evolving longitudinal trajectories of patients' “health journeys”. We show that five categories of chronic physical illnesses exhibit a higher risk of comorbidity with mental health disorders. Further analysis of the intensity of comorbidity revealed evidence for correlations between disease combinations. The highest intensity of comorbidity strength was seen between prostate diseases and Organic Mental Disorders (RR = 2.055, Φ = 0.212). Finally, by analyzing the effects of age and gender in different patient population sub-groups, we clarified the variability of comorbidity patterns within the patient population.


 Citation

Please cite as:

Liang L, Liu T, Ollier W, Peng Y, Lu Y, Che C

Identifying New Risk Associations Between Chronic Physical Illness and Mental Health Disorders in China: Machine Learning Approach to a Retrospective Population Analysis

JMIR AI 2025;4:e72599

DOI: 10.2196/72599

PMID: 40611696

PMCID: 12231344

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