Cardiovascular Disease Risk Classification Using Machine Learning with Weighted Feature Fusion and Explainable AI on Bangladeshi Clinical and Lifestyle Data

DOI: https://doi.org/10.52549/ijeei.v14i1.7421
Published: 17-02-2026 • Issue: Vol. 14 No. 1: March 2026 • Section: Regular paper

Abstract

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is one of the top causes of death across the world, and there is a need to develop early risk prediction models that can be accurate and interpreted. This study introduces a weighted feature fusion (WFF) model of machine learning to integrate clinical, lifestyle, and engineered features into an integrated machine learning model to improve the classification of CVD risk and the interpretability of the model. Several classifiers, such as the Random Forest (RF), K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), XGBoost (XGB), Bagging, Decision Tree were trained and tested based on fusion-based methods. The experimental findings indicated that the highest classification accuracy of the model at 91% obtained by the Random Forest model. Moreover, the model was better in terms of discrimination as ROCAUC scores were over 0.980447in all categories of CVD risk. Explainable AI algorithms, such as SHAP and LIME were used to provide transparency, when combined with feature fusion, leads to a significant improvement in accuracy, reliability, and interpretability of CVD risk prediction models that can lead to the development of data-driven healthcare decision support systems of trust.

References

Sami, I., & Sami, I. (2023, November 5). Cardiovascular diseases in Bangladesh. Cardiology Bangladesh . https://cardiologybd.com/health-wellness/cardiovascular-diseases-in-bangladesh/

Khanam, S. J., & Kabir, M. A. (2023). Socioeconomic differential of cardiovascular diseases risk factors in Bangladesh: Findings from a nationally representative survey. Deleted Journal, 2(2), 110-120. https://doi.org/10.54536/ajmsi.v2i2.2135

Ozcan, M., & Peker, S. (2022). A classification and regression tree algorithm for heart disease modeling and prediction. Healthcare Analytics, 3, 100130. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.health.2022.100130

Yahaya, L., Oye, N. D., & Garba, E. J. (2020). A comprehensive review on heart disease prediction using data mining and machine learning techniques. American Journal of Artificial Intelligence, 4(1), 20. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajai.20200401.12

Alshraideh, M., Alshraideh, N., Alshraideh, A., Alkayed, Y., Trabsheh, Y. A., & Alshraideh, B. (2024). Enhancing Heart Attack Prediction with Machine Learning: A Study at Jordan University Hospital. Applied Computational Intelligence and Soft Computing, 2024(1). https://doi.org/10.1155/2024/5080332

Dritsas, E., Alexiou, S., & Moustakas, K. (2022). Cardiovascular Disease Risk Prediction with Supervised Machine Learning Techniques. https://www.scitepress.org/. https://doi.org/10.5220/0011088300003188

Motarwar, P., Duraphe, A., Suganya, G., & Premalatha, M. (2020). Cognitive Approach for Heart Disease Prediction using Machine Learning. 2020 International Conference on Emerging Trends in Information Technology and Engineering (ic-ETITE), 1-5. https://doi.org/10.1109/ic-etite47903.2020.242

Ayon, S. I., Islam, M. M., & Hossain, M. R. (2020). Coronary Artery Heart Disease Prediction: A Comparative Study of Computational intelligence Techniques. IETE Journal of Research, 68(4), 2488-2507. https://doi.org/10.1080/03772063.2020.1713916

Dritsas, E., & Trigka, M. (2023). Efficient Data-Driven Machine Learning Models for cardiovascular diseases risk prediction. Sensors, 23(3), 1161. https://doi.org/10.3390/s23031161

Chandrasekhar, N., & Peddakrishna, S. (2023). Enhancing Heart Disease Prediction Accuracy through Machine Learning Techniques and Optimization. Processes, 11(4), 1210. https://doi.org/10.3390/pr11041210

Kavitha, M., Gnaneswar, G., Dinesh, R., Sai, Y. R., & Suraj, R. S. (2021). Heart Disease Prediction using Hybrid machine Learning Model. IEEE Xplore, 1329-1333. https://doi.org/10.1109/icict50816.2021.9358597

Ahmed, M., & Husien, I. (2024). Heart disease prediction using Hybrid Machine Learning: A Brief review. journal.umy.ac.id. https://doi.org/10.18196/jrc.v5i3.21606

Ali, M. M., Paul, B. K., Ahmed, K., Bui, F. M., Quinn, J. M., & Moni, M. A. (2021). Heart disease prediction using supervised machine learning algorithms: Performance analysis and comparison. Computers in Biology and Medicine, 136, 104672. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compbiomed.2021.104672

Reddy, K. V. V., Elamvazuthi, I., Aziz, A. A., Paramasivam, S., Chua, H. N., & Pranavanand, S. (2021). Heart Disease Risk Prediction Using Machine Learning Classifiers with Attribute Evaluators. Applied Sciences, 11(18), 8352. https://doi.org/10.3390/app11188352

Hossain, S., Hasan, M. K., Faruk, M. O., Aktar, N., Hossain, R., & Hossain, K. (2024). Machine learning approach for predicting cardiovascular disease in Bangladesh: evidence from a cross-sectional study in 2023. BMC Cardiovascular Disorders, 24(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12872-024-03883-2

Almustafa, K. M. (2020). Prediction of heart disease and classifiers’ sensitivity analysis. BMC Bioinformatics, 21(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12859-020-03626-y

Pal, M., Parija, S., Panda, G., Dhama, K., & Mohapatra, R. K. (2022). Risk prediction of cardiovascular disease using machine learning classifiers. Open Medicine, 17(1), 1100-1113. https://doi.org/10.1515/med-2022-0508

Baghdadi, N. A., Abdelaliem, S. M. F., Malki, A., Gad, I., Ewis, A., & Atlam, E. (2023). Advanced machine learning techniques for cardiovascular disease early detection and diagnosis. Journal of Big Data, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40537-023-00817-1

Hossain, M. I., Maruf, M. H., Khan, M. a. R., Prity, F. S., Fatema, S., Ejaz, M. S., & Khan, M. a. S. (2023). Heart disease prediction using distinct artificial intelligence techniques: performance analysis and comparison. Iran Journal of Computer Science, 6(4), 397-417. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42044-023-00148-7

Uddin, K. M. M., Ripa, R., Yeasmin, N., Biswas, N., & Dey, S. K. (2023). Machine learning-based approach to the diagnosis of cardiovascular vascular disease using a combined dataset. Intelligence-Based Medicine, 7, 100100. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ibmed.2023.100100

Mahmud, I., Kabir, M. M., Mridha, M. F., Alfarhood, S., Safran, M., & Che, D. (2023). Cardiac failure forecasting based on clinical data using a lightweight machine learning metamodel. Diagnostics, 13(15), 2540. https://doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics13152540

Stonier, A. A., Gorantla, R. K., & Manoj, K. (2023). Cardiac disease risk prediction using machine learning algorithms. Healthcare Technology Letters, 11(4), 213-217. https://doi.org/10.1049/htl2.12053

Naik, A., Tejani, G. G., & Mousavirad, S. J. (2025). SGO enhanced random forest and extreme gradient boosting framework for heart disease prediction. Scientific Reports, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-02525-7

Gharib, S. A., Charafeddine, J., Dornaika, F., & Haddad, S. (2025). Hybrid Learning Framework for Explainable Cardiovascular Disease Detection. IEEE Access, 1. https://doi.org/10.1109/access.2025.3591241

Uddin, S., Khan, A., Hossain, M. E., & Moni, M. A. (2019). Comparing different supervised machine learning algorithms for disease prediction. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 19(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12911-019-1004-8

Nirob, M. a. S., Bishshash, P., Siam, A. K. M. F. K., Haque, M. A., & Assaduzzaman, M. (2025). CAIR-CVD-2025: An Extensive Cardiovascular Disease Risk Assessment Dataset from Bangladesh. Mendeley Data. https://doi.org/10.17632/d9scg7j8fp.1

Zhu, X., Wang, Y., Cambria, E., Rida, I., López, J. S., Cui, L., & Wang, R. (2025). RMER-DT: Robust multimodal emotion recognition in conversational contexts based on diffusion and transformers. Information Fusion, 123, 103268. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.inffus.2025.103268

Wang, R., Xu, D., Cascone, L., Wang, Y., Chen, H., Zheng, J., & Zhu, X. (2025). RAFT: Robust Adversarial Fusion Transformer for multimodal sentiment analysis. Array, 27, 100445. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.array.2025.100445

Chen, J., Xing, D., Shabaz, M., Zhu, Y., Wang, Y., & Zhu, X. (2025). DNLN: Image super-resolution with Deformable Non-Local attention and Multi-Branch Weighted Feature Fusion. Image and Vision Computing, 162, 105721. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.imavis.2025.105721

Wang, R., Guo, C., Shabaz, M., Rida, I., Cambria, E., & Zhu, X. (2025). CIME: Contextual Interaction-Based Multimodal emotion Analysis with enhanced semantic information. IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1109/tcss.2025.3572495

Zhu, X., Feng, H., Cambria, E., Huang, Y., Ju, M., Yuan, H., & Wang, R. (2025). EMVAS: end-to-end multimodal emotion visualization analysis system. Complex & Intelligent Systems, 11(8). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40747-025- 01931-8

Zhang, Y., Chen, H., Rida, I., & Zhu, X. (2025). A generative random modality dropout framework for robust multimodal emotion recognition. IEEE Intelligent Systems, 40(5), 62-69. https://doi.org/10.1109/mis.2025.3597120

World Health Organization: WHO. (2019, September 2). WHO updates Cardiovascular Risk Charts. World Health ORganization. https://www.who.int/news/item/02-09-2019-who-updates-cardiovascular-risk-charts

Author Biographies

Tasnimul Intazam Asif
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Student
Bishwaprotap Ray
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Student
Md. Alomgir Hossain
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Associate Professor
Nishat Salsabil Anisha
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Student
Ariful Haque Minhaj
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Student
Amit Roy
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Student

How to Cite

[1]
T. I. Asif et al., “Cardiovascular Disease Risk Classification Using Machine Learning with Weighted Feature Fusion and Explainable AI on Bangladeshi Clinical and Lifestyle Data”, IJEEI, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 44–63, Feb. 2026, doi: 10.52549/ijeei.v14i1.7421.