A Visual Analytics System for Investigating Multimorbidity Using Supervised Machine Learning

Patterns of multimorbidity are complex and difficult to summarise using static visualization techniques like tables and charts. We present a visual analytics system with the goal of facilitating the process of making sense of data collected from patients with multimorbidity. The system reveals underlying patterns in the data visually and interactively, which enables users to easily assess both prevalence and correlation estimates of different chronic diseases among multimorbid patients with varying characteristics. To do so, the system uses count-based conditional probability, binary logistic regression, softmax regression and decision tree models to dynamically compute and visualize prevalence and correlation estimates for subsets of the data characterized by a user-selected set of pre-existing chronic conditions. The system also allows the user to examine the impact of adjusting for characteristics like age and gender on both the prevalence estimates and on correlations among diseases. By dynamically changing patient characteristics of interest and examining the resulting visualizations, the user can explore how prevalence and correlation estimates change with disease diagnosis and with other patient characteristics. This thesis is therefore a significant effort in understanding high-dimensional joint distributions of random variables and the created system can be used in any domain, such as economics, politics or social sciences, in which investigating the relationships between several random variables is vital to drawing the right conclusion

Advancing cross-national planning and partnership: proceedings from the International Multimorbidity Symposium 2019

The International Multimorbidity Symposium was held in November 2019 at Western University to achieve three main objectives: to discuss progress and findings from various jurisdictions; to facilitate collaboration through group discussion to identify strategies to move multimorbidity research forward; and to create concrete plans to ensure advances in multimorbidity research and knowledge can be achieved through cross-national partnership. This event included keynote presentations, elevator pitch presentations and breakout sessions and there was a total of 35 attendees from eight countries, representing diverse disciplines and training levels. The overall themes arising from the event were: the importance of integrating the study and management of multimorbidity from both the primary care and public health perspectives; meaningful engagement and collaboration with patients and caregivers to understand key dimensions of multimorbidity; the considerable benefit of collaborative international partnerships; and the need to spread and scale innovations for health care systems that can better respond to the complex needs of patients and caregivers who are living with multimorbidity. Finally, it was well-acknowledged among the attendees that expanding the collaboration and discussion among international colleagues via in-person and virtual events will be important to move multimorbidity research forward

Advancing cross-national planning and partnership: Proceedings from the International Multimorbidity Symposium 2019.

The International Multimorbidity Symposium was held in November 2019 at Western University to achieve three main objectives: to discuss progress and findings from various jurisdictions; to facilitate collaboration through group discussion to identify strategies to move multimorbidity research forward; and to create concrete plans to ensure advances in multimorbidity research and knowledge can be achieved through cross-national partnership. This event included keynote presentations, elevator pitch presentations and breakout sessions and there was a total of 35 attendees from eight countries, representing diverse disciplines and training levels. The overall themes arising from the event were: the importance of integrating the study and management of multimorbidity from both the primary care and public health perspectives; meaningful engagement and collaboration with patients and caregivers to understand key dimensions of multimorbidity; the considerable benefit of collaborative international partnerships; and the need to spread and scale innovations for health care systems that can better respond to the complex needs of patients and caregivers who are living with multimorbidity. Finally, it was well-acknowledged among the attendees that expanding the collaboration and discussion among international colleagues via in-person and virtual events will be important to move multimorbidity research forward.status: Published onlin