Methods and systems may provide for falls risk assessment using body-worn sensors. If executed by the processor, the instructions can cause the system to calculate a timed up and go (TUG) time segment based on angular velocity data from the plurality of kinematic sensors. The instructions may also cause the system to calculate one or more derived parameters based on the angular velocity data, including temporal gait parameters, spatial gait parameters, tri-axial angular velocity parameters, and turn parameters. Falls data may be collected retrospectively, based on whether the test participant has fallen in the past. Falls data may be collected prospectively, in which the individual is contacted in the future to determine if they have fallen. This outcome data may be used to train regularized discriminant classifier models based on relevant sub-sets of the feature set, selected using sequential forward feature selection. Regularized discriminant parameters and along with associated sequential forward feature selection obtained feature set are obtained via grid-search
