From Text to Insights: NLP-Driven Classification of Infectious Diseases Based on Ecological Risk Factors

Numerous factors can affect the development of infectious diseases that emerge. While many are the result of natural procedures, such as the gradual emergence of viruses over time, certain ones are the result of human activity. Human activities form an integral part of our ecosystem, and especially the ecological aspect of human activities can encourage disease transmission. Additionally, Health ecologists examine changes in the biological, physical, social, and economic settings to understand how these alterations impact the mental and physical well-being of individuals. Hence, this research adopts a Framework-Based Method (FBM) in carrying out the task of classification of infectious diseases. The Framework-Based Method outlines all phases that this research follows to carry out the infectious disease classification process, providing a structured and reproducible approach. Results show that: XGB: Confusion matrix accuracy: 76%, Kappa: 73%, RF: Confusion matrix accuracy: 65%, Kappa: 60%, SVM: Confusion matrix accuracy: 63%, Kappa: 58%, ANN: Confusion matrix accuracy: 71%, Kappa: 67%, LDA: Confusion matrix accuracy: 76%, Kappa: 73%, GBM: Confusion matrix accuracy: 60%, Kappa: 53%, KNN: Confusion matrix accuracy: 43%, Kappa: 34%, and DT: Confusion matrix accuracy: 37%, Kappa: 29%. Furthermore, a Deep Learning model BERT was integrated with the best classification model XGBoots to create an interactive interface for users to carry out infectious disease classification. This integration enhances user experience and accessibility, contributing to the practical application of machine learning and Natural language processing in ecological disease classification