Maternal Health Risk Classification - A Comparison between Algorithm Decision Tree and k-Nearest Neighbor (kNN)

Maternal health is a critical concern, particularly for individuals who are pregnant and will shape the future generations. However, not all expectant mothers receive tailored attention and care for their unique health needs. Consequently, many mothers face high levels of health risks during pregnancy, highlighting the importance of classifying maternal health risks. Classification can help identify influential factors affecting maternal health and predict risk levels for individual mothers. In the field of data mining, various classification methods exist for analyzing complex datasets. This study focuses on two widely used algorithms: decision tree and k-Nearest Neighbor (kNN). By employing these algorithms, we aim to classify a dataset comprising 1,014 records of maternal health risk levels. Through cross-validation and T-tests, we rigorously evaluate the performance of the decision tree and kNN algorithms in this context. Our findings indicate that the kNN algorithm is more suitable for classifying maternal health risks, achieving a significantly higher accuracy of 71.50% compared to the decision tree algorithm's accuracy of 70.71%. This result establishes the superiority of the kNN algorithm in accurately classifying maternal health risks. These findings have implications for developing targeted interventions and tailored healthcare strategies to mitigate identified risks.