Text analysis has become increasingly common in medical research, especially for tasks like patient diagnosis based on medical notes. However, most existing approaches do not account for causal rela tionships between words and diagnoses. This paper proposes a causal approach using the MIMIC-III dataset to identify words or word pairs that causally affect the probability of receiving a specific diagnosis. We employ causal forests to assess the impact of individual linguistic fac tors on patient outcomes while adjusting for potential confounders. Our analysis reveals significant causal relationships between specific terms in clinical notes and the presence of hypothyroidism diagnosis.

Alessandro Albano, Chiara Di Maria, Mariangela Sciandra, Antonella Plaia (2025). Causal machine learning for medical texts. In P.M. A.Pollice (a cura di), Methodological and Applied Statistics and Demography I SIS 2024, Short Papers, Plenary and Specialized Sessions [10.1007/978-3-031-64346-0].

Causal machine learning for medical texts

Alessandro Albano
;
Chiara Di Maria;Mariangela Sciandra;Antonella Plaia
2025-01-01

Abstract

Text analysis has become increasingly common in medical research, especially for tasks like patient diagnosis based on medical notes. However, most existing approaches do not account for causal rela tionships between words and diagnoses. This paper proposes a causal approach using the MIMIC-III dataset to identify words or word pairs that causally affect the probability of receiving a specific diagnosis. We employ causal forests to assess the impact of individual linguistic fac tors on patient outcomes while adjusting for potential confounders. Our analysis reveals significant causal relationships between specific terms in clinical notes and the presence of hypothyroidism diagnosis.
2025
Settore STAT-01/A - Statistica
Alessandro Albano, Chiara Di Maria, Mariangela Sciandra, Antonella Plaia (2025). Causal machine learning for medical texts. In P.M. A.Pollice (a cura di), Methodological and Applied Statistics and Demography I SIS 2024, Short Papers, Plenary and Specialized Sessions [10.1007/978-3-031-64346-0].
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10447/674633
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