Building associations between markers of environmental stressors and adverse human health impacts using frequent itemset mining

摘要

Health effects are unknown for the vast majority of the >83,000 chemicals in commerce, creating challenges in balancing industrial needs against the complex landscape of health susceptibilities and exposures. The National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES), a large-scale survey aimed at determining the prevalence and risk factors of major diseases, is increasingly used to postulate relationships between chemicals and adverse health effects in the U.S. population. The interpretation of these studies is complicated, however, by the ad hoc data mining approaches typically employed.