Document Type

Thesis

Date of Award

12-31-2024

Degree Name

Master of Science in Data Science - (M.S.)

Department

Data Science

First Advisor

Mengjia Xu

Second Advisor

Hai Nhat Phan

Third Advisor

Mengnan Du

Fourth Advisor

Lijing Wang

Abstract

The misuse of stimulant prescription medications poses a significant and escalating public health concern in the United States, particularly among young adults. Addressing this issue requires sophisticated methodologies capable of uncovering complex patterns and relationships in data. Geometric Deep Learning, a paradigm designed to analyze data with non-Euclidean structures, has achieved remarkable success across various domains, offering a powerful framework for tackling complex graph structure data challenges.

This study leverages Graph Convolutional Networks (GCNs) to predict the likelihood of stimulant medication misuse using data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). Individuals are represented as nodes in a graph, while their relationships form edges, capturing social, behavioral, and contextual factors. Experimental results demonstrate the superior performance of the GCN model, achieving 96.1% accuracy, 92.93% precision, and 96.40% recall. can you add the precision and recall too? when compared to traditional machine learning approaches -- Support Vector Machines, k-Nearest Neighbors, Multi-Layer Perceptron, Random Forests, Gaussian Naïve Bayes, and Logistic Regression. The findings underscore the transformative potential of GNNs in predicting stimulant misuse and guiding the design of data-driven prevention strategies. To enhance interpretability, the study integrates GNN Explainer, a tool designed to identify feature importance and explain the model's predictions. By analyzing the critical features influencing misuse predictions, this approach provides great insights into the 20 key factors driving stimulant misuse.

Included in

Data Science Commons

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.