Unraveling the Relationship Between Physical Activity and Health Using Wearable Sensors

• Activity Number: 190 - Novel Approaches for Assessment of Health Outcomes and Multi-Cohort Data Integration Using Wearable Devices in Large-Scale Biomedical Studies
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 8, 2022 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistics in Epidemiology
• Author(s): Charles E. Matthews*
• Companies: National Cancer Institute
• Keywords: exercise; disease prevention; public health; sedentary behavior

Abstract

Higher levels of physical activity (PA) have been associated with lower risk of developing a wide variety of chronic diseases and conditions (e.g., cardiometabolic diseases, several cancers, reduced cognitive function). While links between PA and many diseases have been characterized using questionnaire-based measurements, recent implementation of wearable sensors in large-scale epidemiologic studies sets the stage for further advances in understanding the relationship between PA and health. This talk will: (1) describe existing epidemiologic studies that have utilized wearable sensors as a primary measurement tool; (2) discuss the strengths and limitations of wearable sensors for quantifying human behavior; (3) describe PA-mortality dose-response findings in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES); and (4) and outline important unresolved questions in PA and health research that wearable sensors may be able to resolve.