An Overview of Recommendation Techniques and Their Applications in Healthcare

With the increasing amount of information on the internet, recommendation system (RS) has been utilized in a variety of fields as an efficient tool to overcome information overload. In recent years, the application of RS for health has become a growing research topic due to its tremendous advantages in providing appropriate recommendations and helping people make the right decisions relating to their health. This paper aims at presenting a comprehensive review of typical recommendation techniques and their applications in the field of healthcare. More concretely, an overview is provided on three famous recommendation techniques, namely, content-based, collaborative filtering (CF)-based, and hybrid methods. Next, we provide a snapshot of five application scenarios about health RS, which are dietary recommendation, lifestyle recommendation, training recommendation, decision-making for patients and physicians, and disease-related prediction. Finally, some key challenges are given with clear justifications to this new and booming field.

Automated summary

RS is increasingly being used in healthcare to provide appropriate recommendations and assist individuals in making informed decisions about their health. Content-based, collaborative filtering, and hybrid methods are three popular recommendation techniques applied in areas such as diet, lifestyle, training, decision support, and disease prediction.