Open Access
ARTICLE
Smart Healthcare Using Data-Driven Prediction of Immunization Defaulters in Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI)
Sadaf Qazi1, Muhammad Usman1, Azhar Mahmood1, Aaqif Afzaal Abbasi2, Muhammad Attique3, Yunyoung Nam4,*
1 Predicitive Analytics Laboratory, Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology, Islamabad, 44000, Pakistan
2 Department of Software Engineering, Foundation University Islamabad, Islamabad, 44000, Pakistan
3 Department of Software, Sejong University, Seoul, 05006, Korea
4 Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Soonchunhyang University, Asan, 31538, Korea
* Corresponding Author: Yunyoung Nam. Email:
(This article belongs to this Special Issue: Artificial Intelligence and IoT based intelligent systems using high performance computing for Medical applications.)
Computers, Materials & Continua 2021, 66(1), 589-602. https://doi.org/10.32604/cmc.2020.012507
Received 02 July 2020; Accepted 26 July 2020; Issue published 30 October 2020
Abstract
Immunization is a noteworthy and proven tool for eliminating lifethreating infectious diseases, child mortality and morbidity. Expanded Program
on Immunization (EPI) is a nation-wide program in Pakistan to implement immunization activities, however the coverage is quite low despite the accessibility of
free vaccination. This study proposes a defaulter prediction model for accurate
identification of defaulters. Our proposed framework classifies defaulters at five
different stages: defaulter, partially high, partially medium, partially low, and
unvaccinated to reinforce targeted interventions by accurately predicting children
at high risk of defaulting from the immunization schedule. Different machine
learning algorithms are applied on Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey
(2017–18) dataset. Multilayer Perceptron yielded 98.5% accuracy for correctly
identifying children who are likely to default from immunization series at different risk stages of being defaulter. In this paper, the proposed defaulters’ prediction
framework is a step forward towards a data-driven approach and provides a set of
machine learning techniques to take advantage of predictive analytics. Hence, predictive analytics can reinforce immunization programs by expediting targeted
action to reduce dropouts. Specially, the accurate predictions support targeted
messages sent to at-risk parents’ and caretakers’ consumer devices (e.g., smartphones) to maximize healthcare outcomes.
Keywords
Cite This Article
S. Qazi, M. Usman, A. Mahmood, A. Afzaal Abbasi, M. Attique
et al., "Smart healthcare using data-driven prediction of immunization defaulters in expanded program on immunization (epi),"
Computers, Materials & Continua, vol. 66, no.1, pp. 589–602, 2021. https://doi.org/10.32604/cmc.2020.012507