Journal article icon

Journal article

Predicting future hospital antimicrobial resistance prevalence using machine learning

Abstract:

Background: Predicting antimicrobial resistance (AMR), a top global health threat, nationwide at an aggregate hospital level could help target interventions. Using machine learning, we exploit historical AMR and antimicrobial usage to predict future AMR.


Methods: Antimicrobial use and AMR prevalence in bloodstream infections in hospitals in England were obtained per hospital group (Trust) and financial year (FY, April–March) for 22 pathogen–antibiotic combinations (FY2016-2017 to FY2021-2022). Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) model predictions were compared to the previous value taken forwards, the difference between the previous two years taken forwards and linear trend forecasting (LTF). XGBoost feature importances were calculated to aid interpretability.


Results: Here we show that XGBoost models achieve the best predictive performance. Relatively limited year-to-year variability in AMR prevalence within Trust–pathogen–antibiotic combinations means previous value taken forwards also achieves a low mean absolute error (MAE), similar to or slightly higher than XGBoost. Using the difference between the previous two years taken forward or LTF performs consistently worse. XGBoost considerably outperforms all other methods in Trusts with a larger change in AMR prevalence from FY2020-2021 (last training year) to FY2021-2022 (held-out test set). Feature importance values indicate that besides historical resistance to the same pathogen–antibiotic combination as the outcome, complex relationships between resistance in different pathogens to the same antibiotic/antibiotic class and usage are exploited for predictions. These are generally among the top ten features ranked according to their mean absolute SHAP values.


Conclusions: Year-to-year resistance has generally changed little within Trust–pathogen–antibiotic combinations. In those with larger changes, XGBoost models can improve predictions, enabling informed decisions, efficient resource allocation, and targeted interventions.

Publication status:
Published
Peer review status:
Peer reviewed

Actions


Access Document


Files:
Publisher copy:
10.1038/s43856-024-00606-8

Authors


More by this author
Institution:
University of Oxford
Division:
MSD
Department:
NDM
Sub department:
NDM Experimental Medicine
Role:
Author
ORCID:
0000-0002-4111-7577
More by this author
Institution:
University of Oxford
Division:
MSD
Department:
NDM
Sub department:
NDM Experimental Medicine
Role:
Author
More by this author
Institution:
University of Oxford
Division:
MSD
Department:
Nuffield Department of Population Health
Sub department:
NDM Experimental Medicine
Role:
Author
ORCID:
0000-0001-7097-8950
More by this author
Role:
Author
ORCID:
0000-0001-5500-5691


More from this funder
Funder identifier:
https://ror.org/0187kwz08


Publisher:
Springer Nature
Journal:
Communications Medicine More from this journal
Volume:
4
Issue:
1
Article number:
197
Publication date:
2024-10-10
Acceptance date:
2024-09-04
DOI:
EISSN:
2730-664X


Language:
English
Keywords:
Pubs id:
2026117
Local pid:
pubs:2026117
Source identifiers:
2327841
Deposit date:
2024-10-10

Terms of use



Views and Downloads






If you are the owner of this record, you can report an update to it here: Report update to this record

TO TOP