Table 2.
Random forest (RF) performance comparison: predicting norovirus laboratory reports in specific age groups and regions—existing and emerging syndromic variables were lagged by 1 or 2 weeks.
| Predicting laboratory reports for each group and region | RF (lag=1) | RF (lag=2) | ||||||||
|
|
Explained % | RMSEa (bootstrap) | Explained % | RMSE (bootstrap) | ||||||
| Age group (years) | ||||||||||
|
|
0-4 | 48.8 | 8 | 43 | 8.2 | |||||
|
|
5-14 | —b | — | — | — | |||||
|
|
15-24 | 13.14 | 2.2 | 6 | 2.3 | |||||
|
|
25-44 | 25.18 | 4 | 20 | 4.3 | |||||
|
|
45-64 | 32.16 | 6.6 | 33 | 6.5 | |||||
|
|
≥65 | 55.69 | 40.5 | 60 | 36.6 | |||||
| Region | ||||||||||
|
|
North East | 7.50 | 6.6 | 19.91 | 6.2 | |||||
|
|
North West | 30.39 | 7.2 | 34.06 | 6.5 | |||||
|
|
Yorkshire and Humber | 29.79 | 11.3 | 26.41 | 10.9 | |||||
|
|
East Midlands | 39.42 | 6.9 | 42.19 | 7.1 | |||||
|
|
West Midlands | 35.11 | 9.73 | 32.44 | 9.6 | |||||
|
|
East of England | 44.46 | 12 | 42 | 11.6 | |||||
|
|
London | 47.1 | 8.7 | 35.45 | 8.5 | |||||
|
|
South East | 18.1 | 8.8 | 12.6 | 8.3 | |||||
|
|
South West | 35 | 15.7 | 38.57 | 15.1 | |||||
aRMSE: root-mean-square error.
bNot available.