Health Text Simplification: An Annotated Corpus for Digestive Cancer Education and Novel Strategies for Reinforcement Learning

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Rahman, Md Mushfiqur, Irbaz, Mohammad Sabik, North, Kai, Williams, Michelle S., Zampieri, Marcos, Lybarger, Kevin
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Rahman, Md Mushfiqur
Irbaz, Mohammad Sabik
North, Kai
Williams, Michelle S.
Zampieri, Marcos
Lybarger, Kevin
author_facet Rahman, Md Mushfiqur
Irbaz, Mohammad Sabik
North, Kai
Williams, Michelle S.
Zampieri, Marcos
Lybarger, Kevin
contents Objective: The reading level of health educational materials significantly influences the understandability and accessibility of the information, particularly for minoritized populations. Many patient educational resources surpass the reading level and complexity of widely accepted standards. There is a critical need for high-performing text simplification models in health information to enhance dissemination and literacy. This need is particularly acute in cancer education, where effective prevention and screening education can substantially reduce morbidity and mortality. Methods: We introduce Simplified Digestive Cancer (SimpleDC), a parallel corpus of cancer education materials tailored for health text simplification research, comprising educational content from the American Cancer Society, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and National Cancer Institute. Utilizing SimpleDC alongside the existing Med-EASi corpus, we explore Large Language Model (LLM)-based simplification methods, including fine-tuning, reinforcement learning (RL), reinforcement learning with human feedback (RLHF), domain adaptation, and prompt-based approaches. Our experimentation encompasses Llama 2 and GPT-4. A novel RLHF reward function is introduced, featuring a lightweight model adept at distinguishing between original and simplified texts, thereby enhancing the model's effectiveness with unlabeled data. Results: Fine-tuned Llama 2 models demonstrated high performance across various metrics. Our innovative RLHF reward function surpassed existing RL text simplification reward functions in effectiveness. The results underscore that RL/RLHF can augment fine-tuning, facilitating model training on unlabeled text and improving performance.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2401_15043
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Health Text Simplification: An Annotated Corpus for Digestive Cancer Education and Novel Strategies for Reinforcement Learning
Rahman, Md Mushfiqur
Irbaz, Mohammad Sabik
North, Kai
Williams, Michelle S.
Zampieri, Marcos
Lybarger, Kevin
Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Objective: The reading level of health educational materials significantly influences the understandability and accessibility of the information, particularly for minoritized populations. Many patient educational resources surpass the reading level and complexity of widely accepted standards. There is a critical need for high-performing text simplification models in health information to enhance dissemination and literacy. This need is particularly acute in cancer education, where effective prevention and screening education can substantially reduce morbidity and mortality. Methods: We introduce Simplified Digestive Cancer (SimpleDC), a parallel corpus of cancer education materials tailored for health text simplification research, comprising educational content from the American Cancer Society, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and National Cancer Institute. Utilizing SimpleDC alongside the existing Med-EASi corpus, we explore Large Language Model (LLM)-based simplification methods, including fine-tuning, reinforcement learning (RL), reinforcement learning with human feedback (RLHF), domain adaptation, and prompt-based approaches. Our experimentation encompasses Llama 2 and GPT-4. A novel RLHF reward function is introduced, featuring a lightweight model adept at distinguishing between original and simplified texts, thereby enhancing the model's effectiveness with unlabeled data. Results: Fine-tuned Llama 2 models demonstrated high performance across various metrics. Our innovative RLHF reward function surpassed existing RL text simplification reward functions in effectiveness. The results underscore that RL/RLHF can augment fine-tuning, facilitating model training on unlabeled text and improving performance.
title Health Text Simplification: An Annotated Corpus for Digestive Cancer Education and Novel Strategies for Reinforcement Learning
topic Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.15043