When accurate prediction models yield harmful self-fulfilling prophecies

Objective: Prediction models are popular in medical research and practice. By predicting an outcome of interest for specific patients, these models may help inform difficult treatment decisions, and are often hailed as the poster children for personalized, data-driven healthcare. Many prediction models are deployed for decision support based on their prediction accuracy in validation studies. We investigate whether this is a safe and valid approach.
Materials and Methods: We show that using prediction models for decision making can lead to …

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