Abstract
BackgroundTraditionally, time-use data have been used to inform a broad range of economic and sociological research topics. One of the new areas in time-use research is the study of physical activity (PA) and physical activity energy expenditure (PAEE). Time-use data can be used to study PAEE by assigning MET values to daily activities using the Ainsworth Compendium of Physical Activities. Although most diarists record their daily activities accurately and in detail, they are only required to record their paid working hours, not the job-specific tasks they undertake. This makes it difficult to assign MET values to paid work episodes.MethodsIn this methodological paper, we explain how we addressed this problem by using the detailed information about respondents’ occupational status included in time-use survey household and individual questionnaires. We used the 2008 ISCO manual, a lexicon of the International Labour Organization of occupational titles and their related job-specific tasks. We first assigned a MET value to job-specific tasks using the Ainsworth compendium (2011) then calculated MET values for each of the 436 occupations in the ISCO-08 manual by averaging all job-specific MET values for each occupation.ResultsThe ISCO-08 Major Groups of ‘elementary occupations’ and ‘craft and related trades workers’ are associated with high PAEE variation in terms of their job-specific MET values and together represented 21.6% of the Belgian working population in 2013. We recommend that these occupational categories should be prioritised for further in-depth research into occupational activity (OA).ConclusionsWe developed a clear and replicable procedure to calculate occupational activity for all ISCO-08 occupations. All of our calculations are attached to this manuscript which other researchers may use, replicate and refine.
Highlights
Time-use data have been used to inform a broad range of economic and sociological research topics
Because there is a lack of replicable objectively-measured data on occupational activity (OA) that can be linked to occupational classification systems, we developed a procedure and set of calculations that can be used by health researchers to link occupational physical activity energy expenditure (PAEE) measures to existing surveys, and to inform future research into the objective measurement of OA
Testing the procedure to identify areas for refinement Our approach can best be explained by comparing the assignment of Metabolic Equivalent of Task (METs) values to underlying job-specific tasks for two occupations within the same International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO-08) Sub-Major group of ‘teaching professionals’
Summary
Time-use data have been used to inform a broad range of economic and sociological research topics. The self-reported measures used in epidemiological research (e.g. the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) or the Global Physical Activity Questionnaire (GPAQ)) are used in a standardised and validated format worldwide with large population representative samples. They carry limitations including problems of recall and social desirability bias and further, often focus on single life domains [10]. Recent studies have used objective data collection methods and devices (e.g. wearable cameras, accelerometers, smart watches, global positioning systems (GPS)) to capture PAEE These instruments provide precise and accurate measurements of specific types of PA, but include little or no information about the context in which the activities took place. Due to time and cost constraints compared with selfreport methods, studies using device-based methods usually have small samples [9, 10]
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