Secure and Efficient Federated Learning for Predictive Modeling in Resource-Constrained Healthcare Systems

Background Predictive modeling in healthcare holds promise for improving clinical outcomes, but in many low-resource settings, data fragmentation, privacy concerns, and infrastructural limitations hinder centralized machine learning approaches. This is particularly relevant in HIV care, where accurately identifying patients at risk of viral load (VL) non-suppression is essential for timely intervention. Methods We developed a privacy-preserving federated learning (FL) framework to predict HIV VL suppression using retrospective data from 50,000 patients and over one million visits across 30 health facilities in Uganda. The framework utilizes federated averaging for distributed training, secure multiparty aggregation, and differential privacy to ensure data confidentiality. To address cross-site heterogeneity, we integrated domain-adversarial neural networks to promote domain-invariant feature learning. A multilayer perceptron model was trained collaboratively across facilities using local data only. Results The federated model achieved an area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.874, nearly matching a centralized baseline (AUC 0.881) and substantially outperforming site-specific models (average AUC 0.758). Sensitivity (89.6%) and specificity (66.8%) demonstrate strong capability in identifying both suppressed and unsuppressed cases. Domain adaptation reduced inter-facility performance variability, and differential privacy imposed minimal accuracy degradation. Training was completed within one hour using modest hardware, which supported feasibility in low-resource settings. Conclusion Our study demonstrates that FL can deliver robust, privacy-preserving predictive performance in HIV care without centralizing sensitive patient data. The proposed architecture is adaptable to other clinical prediction tasks and represents a practical pathway for scaling ethical AI across decentralized healthcare systems in low- and middle-income countries.