Machine Learning Based Cervical Cancer Risk Prediction with SHAP-Driven Feature Interpretation

Cervical cancer remains a critical public health problem, particularly in developing countries where early detection is often limited. This study presents a machine learning–based approach for cervical cancer risk prediction that emphasizes both predictive accuracy and interpretability. Several supervised algorithms, namely K-Nearest Neighbors, Random Forest, XGBoost, and CatBoost, were evaluated using the Cervical Cancer (Risk Factors) dataset from the UCI Machine Learning Repository following comprehensive data preprocessing and systematic hyperparameter optimization. The experimental results show that CatBoost achieved the best overall performance, with an optimized accuracy of 97.01% and improved sensitivity in detecting high-risk cases, supported by stable k-fold cross-validation results. To enhance clinical transparency, explainable artificial intelligence was incorporated via SHAP, revealing that key predictors such as the Schiller test, age, and reproductive factors played dominant roles in the model’s decisions. These findings demonstrate that the proposed framework is not only accurate and stable but also interpretable and clinically relevant, making it well-suited to support early detection and decision-making in cervical cancer screening, especially in resource-limited healthcare settings.