Multi-Task Learning to Identify Outcome-Specific Risk Factors that Distinguish Individual Micro and Macrovascular Complications of Type 2 Diabetes

Because deterioration in overall metabolic health underlies multiple complications of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, a substantial overlap among risk factors for the complications exists, and this makes the outcomes difficult to distinguish. We hypothesized each risk factor had two roles: describing the extent of deteriorating overall metabolic health and signaling a particular complication the patient is progressing towards. We aimed to examine feasibility of our proposed methodology that separates these two roles, thereby, improving interpretation of predictions and helping prioritize which complication to target first. To separate these two roles, we built models for six complications utilizing Multi-Task Learning—a machine learning technique for modeling multiple related outcomes by exploiting their commonality—in 80% of EHR data (N=9,793) from a university hospital and validated them in remaining 20% of the data. Additionally, we externally validated the models in claims and EHR data from the OptumLabs™ Data Warehouse (N=72,720). Our methodology successfully separated the two roles, revealing distinguishing outcome-specific risk factors without compromising predictive performance. We believe that our methodology has a great potential to generate more understandable thus actionable clinical information to make a more accurate and timely prognosis for the patients.