Forecasting Cancer Incidence in Canada by Age, Sex, and Region Until 2026 Using Machine Learning Techniques
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This study analyzes cancer trends in Canada using machine learning techniques to extract insights from extensive cancer data sourced from the Canadian Cancer Society and Statistics Canada. It aims to enhance the understanding of cancer epidemiology and inform better prevention, diagnosis, and treatment strategies. Data preprocessing addressed issues like missing values and normalization, ensuring reliability. The findings indicate a steady increase in new cancer cases, with estimates reaching 248,700 in 2026, up from 244,000 in 2022. Male incidence rates are projected to rise slightly to 602.3 per 100,000, while female rates may decline to 530.6. Regions such as Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec show rising incidence rates, contrasted by declines in Newfoundland and Labrador, Nunavut, and Yukon. Notably, this research reveals significant increases in cancer cases among individuals aged 60 and older, particularly those 70+. The hybrid ARIMA-LSTM model demonstrated superior forecasting accuracy compared with the other selected models. These findings offer valuable insights for health policymakers and highlight the potential of machine learning in public health forecasting, providing a framework for future research in other disease areas.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".