1. A method comprising: receiving, as part of a speech trend analysis request, a set of candidate feature constraints, an objective mathematical function with respect to a speech trend to be analyzed, and a set of speech record constraints to be applied to a group of speech records; selecting a speech record from the group of speech records based on the set of speech record constraints; identifying features in the speech record based on the set of candidate feature constraints, to yield identified features; assigning, via a processor, using a statistical regression, a weight to each of the identified features, wherein a scalar value associated with each identified feature is evaluated using the objective mathematical function to yield the weight; ranking the identified features by respective weights, to yield ranked identified features; comparing the ranked identified features to a hand-picked set of alarm features, to yield a comparison; and when the comparison indicates an alarm condition has been met, outputting one of the ranked identified features associated with a speech-based trend in response to the speech as an alarm.