Abstract
BackgroundAccelerometer output may be semi-continuous or continuous in nature, which has implications on discerning non-wear and defining physical activity intensity levels. This study described field-based accelerometer performance from a surveillance sample of youth and adults.MethodsUsing 2003–2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data, 4,028 youth ages 6 to 17 years and 7,931 adults age > =18 years wore an ActiGraph AM7164 accelerometer for one week, providing at least 3 days of wear for > =8 hours/day. Accelerometer performance was assessed by exploring the number of different values of accelerometer counts/minute for each participant.ResultsOn average, youth participants had 1381 different counts/minute over 7 days (median 1360, interquartile range 1127–1623) and adult participants had 1101 different counts/minute over 7 days (median 1085, interquartile range 874–1313). For both youth and adults, when restricting to counts/minute between 0 to 4999, every possible value (in counts/minute) occurred at least once.ConclusionThe field-based data confirmed that the accelerometer used in this study allowed for continuous counts/minute through which all but the most vigorous activities would usually occur.
Highlights
Accelerometer output may be semi-continuous or continuous in nature, which has implications on discerning non-wear and defining physical activity intensity levels
The number of different counts was higher among boys, ages 6 to 9 years, Non-Hispanic Blacks, those who were normal weight, and those in the highest tertile of moderate to vigorous leisure activity (Table 2)
The number of different counts was higher for those with a higher number of adherent accelerometer days and on weekdays compared to weekends
Summary
Accelerometer output may be semi-continuous or continuous in nature, which has implications on discerning non-wear and defining physical activity intensity levels. Both devices assess acceleration using counts as the output metric [1]. A recent study found that the Actical counts were semi-continuous in nature, with some values never registering, at the low end of the spectrum where sedentary and light physical activity would occur [2]. The semi-continuous nature of the data may contribute to inaccuracies in using cutpoints to define intensity, because slight differences in the low ranges may not be distinguished, such as between sedentary and the lower range of light physical activity. The aim of this paper was to explore the performance of the ActiGraph accelerometer in a large population-based surveillance system of youth and adults
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