Extracting decision models for ski injury prediction from data

Creating decision models for risk assessment of ski injuries is a challenging task. Ski injuries are rare events, but they carry a high cost, that is, can cause working or movement disabilities. Usually, ski risk assessment is performed on small‐scale, case‐controlled studies where the effect of a single factor is evaluated. Recently, data mining and machine learning algorithms are being employed for ski risk assessment and injury prediction. However, these models do not generally satisfy the need for interpretation of the decision model, do not provide explanations for the predictions, and in general do not ensure the completeness and consistency of decision rules. To make data mining and machine learning models useful, one needs to implement the aforementioned properties. Decision support systems are expected to have these properties; however, the process of building such decision support systems is still tedious: it has to consider human biases, assumptions, and subjective values, as well as focus on the decision problem being solved. We propose a method for extraction of decision models from data at hand. Our method DIDEX, Data Induced DEcision eXpert, builds models that have desirable properties for inclusion in decision support systems. The proposed method is used to build a decision model for ski injury prediction based on data from Mt. Kopaonik ski resort, Serbia. The results show that DIDEX generates up to a five times simpler model compared to the existing domain expert DEX models while having a 6% better predictive accuracy. Additionally, its predictive accuracy is comparable to similar machine learning algorithms, such as decision tree classifiers, random forest, and logistic regression.