Article here. Excerpt:
'Victims of domestic abuse can hide the truth from doctors, but they leave clues in their medical records that a computer program has now learned to follow.
The program could save lives by acting as an early warning system for domestic violence, flagging up possible cases of abuse to doctors months or even years before they would otherwise be detected.
The program produced a set of rules based on the differences it found. These were mainly based on patterns of injuries and bouts of mental illness – signs of abuse that doctors already look for.
But the program also found new clues, including some that pick out victims of one sex but not the other. Alcoholism, for instance, is a red flag for abuse in women, but not men, because it is less common among women in general. In contrast, depression and other mood disorders are a strong predictor of abuse in men, but less so for women.'
