Table 3.

Variable importance ranking for the models used in the analysis of WHO-defined non-severe pneumonia

Model		Logistic	PLS-DA	Random forest	Elastic net	Linear SVM	Mean rank (SD)
Feature importance rank	Respiratory rate ≥ 70 breaths/min	3	1	1	2	3	2 (0.89)
	Age < 12 months * Respiratory rate ≥ 70	2	2	8	8	2	4.4 (2.94)
	Age < 12 months	1	3	7	11	1	4.6 (3.88)
	Very low WAZ	7	5	3	6	7	5.6 (1.5)
	Presence of comorbidity	5	4	6	10	5	6 (2.1)
	Female	6	7	2	9	6	6 (2.28)
	Mild/moderate pallor	8	9	4	3	8	6.4 (2.42)
	Temperature > 39 °C	4	13	10	-	4	7.75 (3.9)
	Severe pallor	13	8	5	1	13	8 (4.65)
	Malaria endemic	12	6	9	13	12	10.4 (2.58)
	Malaria endemic * Mild/moderate pallor	11	14	16	4	11	11.2 (4.07)
	Comorbidity * Very low WAZ	10	12	13	-	10	11.25 (1.3)
	Non-severe malaria	16	10	11	7	16	12 (3.52)
	Some dehydration	9	15	18	15	9	13.2 (3.6)
	Low WAZ	14	16	12	-	14	14 (1.41)
	Comorbidity * Low WAZ	17	17	15	5	17	14.2 (4.66)
	Malaria endemic * Non-severe malaria	18	11	14	12	18	14.6 (2.94)
	Malaria endemic * Severe pallor	15	18	17	14	15	15.8 (1.47)

Variables with (*) are interaction terms, i.e. variables used to test whether the effect of one independent variable differed depending on the level of the other independent variable

SD standard deviation