Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT: Background
In research using accelerometers to measure physical activity, the number of accelerometers that can be utilized in a study and the study duration are both constrained. It means that increasing the number of accelerometer wearing days for all subjects leads to a decrease in the total number of participants the study can recruit. We used simulations to find the optimal combination of the number of wearing days and number of participant given a fixed number of accelerometer days.Methods
Two scenarios were studied here, including estimation of population physical activity level and the association between physical activity level and a health outcome. Another similar simulation was conducted by bootstrapping the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2003-2006 accelerometer data (n = 4,069).Results
The simulation results of the first scenario showed that the error was minimized when the number of wearing days was 1 to 2. Simulation results of the second scenario showed that the optimal number of wearing days increased with the total number of accelerometer days and decreased with intra-class correlation (ICC).Conclusion
We developed a tool for researchers to determine the optimal combination of the number of the accelerometer wearing days and the total number of participants and showed that 1 to 2 accelerometer wearing days is optimal for estimation of population physical activity level.
SUBMITTER: Lee PH
PROVIDER: S-EPMC6776478 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Journal of epidemiology 20181020 11
<h4>Background</h4>In research using accelerometers to measure physical activity, the number of accelerometers that can be utilized in a study and the study duration are both constrained. It means that increasing the number of accelerometer wearing days for all subjects leads to a decrease in the total number of participants the study can recruit. We used simulations to find the optimal combination of the number of wearing days and number of participant given a fixed number of accelerometer days ...[more]