State-of-the-art learning COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness using LSTM

• Published in: Informatics in medicine unlocked Vol. 49; p. 101561
• Main Authors: Shen, Chen, Lin, Menghan, Lee, Yungchun, Dong, Ming, Zhao, Lili
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 2024; Elsevier
• Subjects: Causal inference; COVID-19 vaccines; Electronic health records (EHR); LSTM; Vaccine effectiveness; Vaccine policy compliance; COVID-19 vaccines; Causal inference; Electronic health records (EHR); LSTM; Vaccine effectiveness; Vaccine policy compliance
• ISSN: 2352-9148; 2352-9148
• DOI: 10.1016/j.imu.2024.101561

The effect of COVID-19 vaccines in reducing hospitalization risks was studied using the Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) model. We first devised a dynamic environment using an LSTM that characterizes the impact of COVID-19 vaccine administrations on COVID-19 infections in the real-world setting from May 2021 to April 2023. Then, we generated hypothetical subjects with various vaccination profiles (e.g., all subjects received or not received the booster vaccine, or all subjects had followed the vaccine policy) and predicted their counterfactual outcomes based on the LSTM to make inferences on the vaccine effectiveness and estimate the population-averaged risk of infection if there was full compliance for the vaccine policy. Our findings confirm that booster doses significantly reduced the risk of COVID-19 hospitalization while bivalent booster had similar or slightly better effectiveness than the monovalent booster. Additionally, our analysis highlights the importance of adhering to vaccine policies in effectively reducing the risk of hospitalizations. Our study contributes to understanding the dynamics of vaccine efficacy and supports informed decision-making in public health strategies. •Developed an LSTM model to assess COVID-19 vaccine impact on infection outcomes.•Used EHR data from 114,112 individuals to study vaccination and COVID-19 outcomes.•Analysis comfirms booster vaccines significantly reduce COVID-19 hospitalization risks.•Explored impact of full/partial compliance with vaccine policies on hospitalization risks.•Findings support public health strategies and highlight vaccine policy adherence benefits.