ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To discuss the potential application of artificial neural network (ANN) on the epidemiological classification of disease. METHODS: Learning vector quantification neural network (LVQNN) and discriminate analysis were applied to data from epidemiological survey in a mine in 1996. RESULTS: The structure of LVQNN was 25-->13-->3. The total veracity rates was 96.98%, and 92.45% among the abnormal blood glucose individuals. Through stepwise discriminate analysis, the discriminate equations were established including 11 variables with a total veracity rate of 87.34%, but was 85.53% in the abnormal blood glucose individuals. Further analysis on 30 cases with missing values showed that the disagreement ratio of LVQ was 1/30, lower than that of discriminate analysis of 7/30. CONCLUSIONS: Compared to the conventional statistics method, LVQ not only showed better prediction precision, but could treat data with missing values satisfactorily plus it had no limit to the type or distribution of relevant data, thus provided a new powerful method to epidemiologic prediction.
