Impact of Physical Activity on Quality of Life During Pregnancy: A Causal ML Approach

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Kazemi, Kianoosh, Ryhtä, Iina, Azimi, Iman, Niela-Vilen, Hannakaisa, Axelin, Anna, Rahmani, Amir M., Liljeberg, Pasi
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866910345037086720
author Kazemi, Kianoosh
Ryhtä, Iina
Azimi, Iman
Niela-Vilen, Hannakaisa
Axelin, Anna
Rahmani, Amir M.
Liljeberg, Pasi
author_facet Kazemi, Kianoosh
Ryhtä, Iina
Azimi, Iman
Niela-Vilen, Hannakaisa
Axelin, Anna
Rahmani, Amir M.
Liljeberg, Pasi
contents The concept of Quality of Life (QoL) refers to a holistic measurement of an individual's well-being, incorporating psychological and social aspects. Pregnant women, especially those with obesity and stress, often experience lower QoL. Physical activity (PA) has shown the potential to enhance the QoL. However, pregnant women who are overweight and obese rarely meet the recommended level of PA. Studies have investigated the relationship between PA and QoL during pregnancy using correlation-based approaches. These methods aim to discover spurious correlations between variables rather than causal relationships. Besides, the existing methods mainly rely on physical activity parameters and neglect the use of different factors such as maternal (medical) history and context data, leading to biased estimates. Furthermore, the estimations lack an understanding of mediators and counterfactual scenarios that might affect them. In this paper, we investigate the causal relationship between being physically active (treatment variable) and the QoL (outcome) during pregnancy and postpartum. To estimate the causal effect, we develop a Causal Machine Learning method, integrating causal discovery and causal inference components. The data for our investigation is derived from a long-term wearable-based health monitoring study focusing on overweight and obese pregnant women. The machine learning (meta-learner) estimation technique is used to estimate the causal effect. Our result shows that performing adequate physical activity during pregnancy and postpartum improves the QoL by units of 7.3 and 3.4 on average in physical health and psychological domains, respectively. In the final step, four refutation analysis techniques are employed to validate our estimation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2402_16909
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Impact of Physical Activity on Quality of Life During Pregnancy: A Causal ML Approach
Kazemi, Kianoosh
Ryhtä, Iina
Azimi, Iman
Niela-Vilen, Hannakaisa
Axelin, Anna
Rahmani, Amir M.
Liljeberg, Pasi
Machine Learning
Methodology
The concept of Quality of Life (QoL) refers to a holistic measurement of an individual's well-being, incorporating psychological and social aspects. Pregnant women, especially those with obesity and stress, often experience lower QoL. Physical activity (PA) has shown the potential to enhance the QoL. However, pregnant women who are overweight and obese rarely meet the recommended level of PA. Studies have investigated the relationship between PA and QoL during pregnancy using correlation-based approaches. These methods aim to discover spurious correlations between variables rather than causal relationships. Besides, the existing methods mainly rely on physical activity parameters and neglect the use of different factors such as maternal (medical) history and context data, leading to biased estimates. Furthermore, the estimations lack an understanding of mediators and counterfactual scenarios that might affect them. In this paper, we investigate the causal relationship between being physically active (treatment variable) and the QoL (outcome) during pregnancy and postpartum. To estimate the causal effect, we develop a Causal Machine Learning method, integrating causal discovery and causal inference components. The data for our investigation is derived from a long-term wearable-based health monitoring study focusing on overweight and obese pregnant women. The machine learning (meta-learner) estimation technique is used to estimate the causal effect. Our result shows that performing adequate physical activity during pregnancy and postpartum improves the QoL by units of 7.3 and 3.4 on average in physical health and psychological domains, respectively. In the final step, four refutation analysis techniques are employed to validate our estimation.
title Impact of Physical Activity on Quality of Life During Pregnancy: A Causal ML Approach
topic Machine Learning
Methodology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.16909