Journal
PLOS ONE
Volume 11, Issue 3, Pages -Publisher
PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0150534
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- U.S. Public Health Service [T32 HL007034]
- National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health [UO1 HL103629]
- Child Health Research Institute at Stanford University
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Objective To examine the effects of accelerometer epoch lengths, wear time (WT) algorithms, and activity cut-points on estimates of WT, sedentary behavior (SB), and physical activity (PA). Methods 268 7-11 year-olds with BMI >= 85th percentile for age and sex wore accelerometers on their right hips for 4-7 days. Data were processed and analyzed at epoch lengths of 1-, 5-, 10-, 15-, 30-, and 60-seconds. For each epoch length, WT minutes/day was determined using three common WT algorithms, and minutes/day and percent time spent in SB, light (LPA), moderate (MPA), and vigorous (VPA) PA were determined using five common activity cut-points. ANOVA tested differences in WT, SB, LPA, MPA, VPA, and MVPA when using the different epoch lengths, WT algorithms, and activity cut-points. Results WT minutes/day varied significantly by epoch length when using the NHANES WT algorithm (p<.0001), but did not vary significantly by epoch length when using the >= 20 minute consecutive zero or Choi WT algorithms. Minutes/day and percent time spent in SB, LPA, MPA, VPA, and MVPA varied significantly by epoch length for all sets of activity cut-points tested with all three WT algorithms (all p<.0001). Across all epoch lengths, minutes/day and percent time spent in SB, LPA, MPA, VPA, and MVPA also varied significantly across all sets of activity cut-points with all three WT algorithms (all p<.0001). Conclusions The common practice of converting WT algorithms and activity cut-point definitions to match different epoch lengths may introduce significant errors. Estimates of SB and PA from studies that process and analyze data using different epoch lengths, WT algorithms, and/or activity cut-points are not comparable, potentially leading to very different results, interpretations, and conclusions, misleading research and public policy.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available