Recursive Partitioning

Recursive partitioning is a statistical method for multivariable analysis. Recursive partitioning creates a decision tree that strives to correctly classify members of the population based on several dichotomous dependent variables.

This article focuses on recursive partitioning for medical diagnostic tests, but the technique has far wider applications. See decision tree.

As compared to regression analysis, which creates a formula that health care providers can use to calculate the probability that a patient has a disease, recursive partition creates a rule such as 'If a patient has finding x, y, or z they probably have disease q'.

A variation is 'Cox linear recursive partitioning'.