BRP-GABLE: An Interpretable Rule-Based Prediction Framework for Multiple Outcome Types

Abstract

Interpretable prediction models are important in biomedical research, where predictive accuracy must often be balanced against the ability to examine predictor-outcome relationships. Automatic Binary Logistic Estimation (ABLE) provides interpretable rule-based representations by constructing additive models using threshold rules. However, the original method is restricted to binary outcomes, and its greedy forward construction follows a search path, making candidate rules dependent on earlier selections and potentially excluding alternative structures. We extended ABLE to binary, continuous, and time-to-event outcomes using outcome-specific fitting criteria, yielding Generalized ABLE (GABLE). We then propose bootstrap rule pooling for GABLE (BRP-GABLE), which applies GABLE rule generation to bootstrap samples to explore alternative search paths, pool distinct rules, and perform a single global LASSO selection over the pooled rules and truncated linear terms. Unlike conventional bagging, bootstrap-specific models are not averaged, and resampling is used to diversify the candidate rule space before constructing a final model. Simulations showed that BRP-GABLE consistently improved predictive performance compared with GABLE and provided competitive prediction with relatively simple rule structures. Application to overall survival demonstrated its use for clinically interpretable prediction. BRP-GABLE provides a flexible framework for constructing sparse and interpretable predictive models across multiple outcome types.