Menopause Symptom-Trajectory Research Model
An early-stage biotechnology company developing computational tools in women's neuroendocrine health is building a portfolio of stratification and prediction work. Symptom trajectories across the perimenopause and menopause transition are heterogeneous — some women have mild, short-lived symptoms, others persistent multi-domain burden — and a clinically useful stratification model could identify women who need earlier support. Delivering an interpretable predictive-modeling pilot built on public-use data from a multi-site longitudinal cohort of 3,302 women.
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Design and prototype an interpretable predictive model that uses public-use cohort data to differentiate clinically meaningful symptom-burden trajectories across the menopause transition, giving the company a reference analysis that can inform future stratification work without exposing its confidential methodology or product IP.
Four phases over seven weeks: discovery and requirements, including confirming the IRB pathway and the data-use process with the university; data exploration and model design, with a variable dictionary and missingness map and a transparent definition of trajectory groups; model development, comparing logistic and elastic-net regression and rule-based baselines with gradient-boosted trees using nested cross-validation or a pre-specified split; and testing, refinement, and handover. Interpretability is prioritized over complexity. Excludes participant contact, private patient data, clinically validated or diagnostic tools, and production software.
A working predictive model that differentiates symptom-burden trajectories on held-out public-use data, with reported discrimination, calibration, sensitivity and specificity, subgroup performance, and feature attribution (such as SHAP). Delivered with source code and notebooks, documentation of data sources, assumptions, and missingness handling, a model card covering intended use, limitations, and non-use cases, draft methods and results text suitable for a joint manuscript, and guidance for extending the model with additional data in future work. Research and modeling only — no clinical deployment.