mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

FairDisCo: Fairer AI in Dermatology via Disentanglement Contrastive Learning

arXiv 2208.10013 ↗First posted 22 Aug 2022cs.CVcited by 22

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Abstract (arXiv)

Deep learning models have achieved great success in automating skin lesion diagnosis. However, the ethnic disparity in these models' predictions, where lesions on darker skin types are usually underrepresented and have lower diagnosis accuracy, receives little attention. In this paper, we propose FairDisCo, a disentanglement deep learning framework with contrastive learning that utilizes an additional network branch to remove sensitive attributes, i.e. skin-type information from representations for fairness and another contrastive branch to enhance feature extraction. We compare FairDisCo to three fairness methods, namely, resampling, reweighting, and attribute-aware, on two newly released skin lesion datasets with different skin types: Fitzpatrick17k and Diverse Dermatology Images (DDI). We adapt two fairness-based metrics DPM and EOM for our multiple classes and sensitive attributes task, highlighting the skin-type bias in skin lesion classification. Extensive experimental evaluation demonstrates the effectiveness of FairDisCo, with fairer and superior performance on skin lesion classification tasks.

Key facts. Cited by 22 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 24 of its 48 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 22 Aug 2022.

Builds on

24 of 48 references.

References · 24

  1. 2014Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimizationcited by 36,960
  2. 2019Momentum Contrast for Unsupervised Visual Representation Learningcited by 7,482
  3. 2020Supervised Contrastive Learningcited by 2,803
  4. 2019A Survey on Bias and Fairness in Machine Learningcited by 1,911
  5. 2019Towards Fairness in Visual Recognition: Effective Strategies for Bias Mitigationcited by 252
  6. 2021Evaluating Deep Neural Networks Trained on Clinical Images in Dermatology with the Fitzpatrick 17k Datasetcited by 184
  7. 2018Adversarial Removal of Demographic Attributes from Text Datacited by 166
  8. 2017Data Decisions and Theoretical Implications when Adversarially Learning Fair Representationscited by 165
  9. 2021Contrastive Learning based Hybrid Networks for Long-Tailed Image Classificationcited by 130
  10. 2019Fairness in Deep Learning: A Computational Perspectivecited by 123
  11. 2018Turning a Blind Eye: Explicit Removal of Biases and Variation from Deep Neural Network Embeddingscited by 114
  12. 2020Investigating Bias and Fairness in Facial Expression Recognitioncited by 87
12 more
  1. 2018Achieving Fairness through Adversarial Learning: an Application to Recidivism Predictioncited by 77
  2. 2020Fairness by Learning Orthogonal Disentangled Representationscited by 76
  3. 2021Post-processing for Individual Fairnesscited by 61
  4. 2022FairPrune: Achieving Fairness Through Pruning for Dermatological Disease Diagnosiscited by 59
  5. 2021Fairness in Cardiac MR Image Analysis: An Investigation of Bias Due to Data Imbalance in Deep Learning Based Segmentationcited by 57
  6. 2022Fairness-aware Adversarial Perturbation Towards Bias Mitigation for Deployed Deep Modelscited by 47
  7. 2019Skin Lesion Classification Using Ensembles of Multi-Resolution EfficientNets with Meta Datacited by 43
  8. 2021Contrastive Domain Adaptationcited by 36
  9. 2022Towards Transparency in Dermatology Image Datasets with Skin Tone Annotations by Experts, Crowds, and an Algorithmcited by 35
  10. 2021Estimating and Improving Fairness with Adversarial Learningcited by 26
  11. 2022Detecting Melanoma Fairly: Skin Tone Detection and Debiasing for Skin Lesion Classificationcited by 23
  12. 2019Skin Lesion Classification Using CNNs with Patch-Based Attention and Diagnosis-Guided Loss Weightingcited by 10

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2022: 2; 2023: 2; 2024: 6; 2025: 4; 2026: 8.

22 papers.

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  1. 2022Addressing Fairness Issues in Deep Learning-Based Medical Image Analysis: A Systematic Reviewcited by 27
  2. 2022Debiasing Methods for Fairer Neural Models in Vision and Language Research: A Surveycited by 22
  3. 2024BiasPruner: Debiased Continual Learning for Medical Image Classificationcited by 12
  4. 2025STiL: Semi-supervised Tabular-Image Learning for Comprehensive Task-Relevant Information Exploration in Multimodal Classificationcited by 12
  5. 2024Investigating the Quality of DermaMNIST and Fitzpatrick17k Dermatological Image Datasetscited by 7
  6. 2024PatchAlign:Fair and Accurate Skin Disease Image Classification by Alignment with Clinical Labelscited by 5
  7. 2023FEDD -- Fair, Efficient, and Diverse Diffusion-based Lesion Segmentation and Malignancy Classificationcited by 4
  8. 2023AViT: Adapting Vision Transformers for Small Skin Lesion Segmentation Datasetscited by 3
  9. 2024FairREAD: Re-fusing Demographic Attributes after Disentanglement for Fair Medical Image Classificationcited by 3
  10. 2025Bias and Generalizability of Foundation Models across Datasets in Breast Mammographycited by 3
  11. 2025Enhancing Fairness in Skin Lesion Classification for Medical Diagnosis Using Prune Learningcited by 2
  12. 2024Improving Fairness of Automated Chest X-ray Diagnosis by Contrastive Learningcited by 1
10 more
  1. 2025Evaluating Fairness and Mitigating Bias in Machine Learning: A Novel Technique using Tensor Data and Bayesian Regressioncited by 1
  2. 2024Debiasify: Self-Distillation for Unsupervised Bias Mitigationcited by 0
  3. 2026LesionTABE: Equitable AI for Skin Lesion Detectioncited by 0
  4. 2026Multimodal system for skin cancer detectioncited by 0
  5. 2026Exploring the Impact of Skin Color on Skin Lesion Segmentationcited by 0
  6. 2026Evaluating the Impact of Medical Image Reconstruction on Downstream AI Fairness and Performancecited by 0
  7. 2026Worst-Group Equalized Odds Regularization for Multi-Attribute Fair Medical Image Classificationcited by 0
  8. 2026Controllable Generation of Diverse Dermatological Imagery for Fair and Efficient Malignancy Classificationcited by 0
  9. 2026Bias Mitigation in Face Recognition via Demographic-based Supervised Contrastive Learningcited by 0
  10. 2026MIFR: A Modality-Invariant and Fair Representation Framework for Skin Disease Classificationcited by 0