Physical activity insights from mobile phone and accelerometer data

This is a talk I gave at the "Overcoming Barriers to Movement and Physical Activity Seminar", organised by the Movement and Physical Activity Network at the University of Leeds.

I argue that we need good data in order to devise solutions for overcoming barriers. I cite work from two recent papers, one which utilises accelerometer data and one which used mobile phone app data.

The citations for the papers discussed in the talk:

Pontin, F., Lomax, N., Clarke, G. and Morris, M.A., 2021. Socio-demographic determinants of physical activity and app usage from smartphone data. Social Science & Medicine, 284, p.114235. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114235

Clark, S., Lomax, N., Morris, M., Pontin, F. and Birkin, M., 2021. Clustering Accelerometer Activity Patterns from the UK Biobank Cohort. Sensors, 21(24), p.8220. https://doi.org/10.3390/s21248220

Transcript

1. Physical activity insights
   from mobile phone and
   accelerometer data
   N I K L O M A X
   S C H O O L O F G E O G R A P H Y , U N I V E R S I T Y O F L E E D S
   N . M . L O M A X @ L E E D S . A C . U K
   

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2. Overcoming Barriers to Movement and Physical Activity
   • We need data
   • How do patterns vary?
   • Can we better target interventions?
   

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3. Accelerometers
   • Traditional study design
   • Short term data collection
   • Only good for acceleration
   based measurement
   • Often detailed demographics
   

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4. Mobile phone based apps
   • Longer term collection
   • Greater equity
   • Multiple activity types
   • Secondary data
   • Missing context
   

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15. The demographics of activity
    • Female users walk significantly fewer steps than males
    • Male users record both a higher average number of activities a day and a higher
    average number of different activities whilst using the app
    • Female users recorded longer duration activities on average than the male users.
    • Users living in more affluent areas had a higher average daily step count and
    recorded more diverse activity types
    • However, they record significantly fewer minutes of activity than the users living in
    less affluent areas
    

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17. Overcoming Barriers to Movement and Physical Activity
    • We need data
    • How do patterns vary?
    • Can we better target interventions?
    • 23% of adults globally are not sufficiently active
    • 34% of men and 42% of women in the United Kingdom (UK)
    not active enough for good health
    • one in six UK deaths can be attributed to physical inactivity
    

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18. Physical activity insights
    from mobile phone and
    accelerometer data
    N I K L O M A X
    S C H O O L O F G E O G R A P H Y , U N I V E R S I T Y O F L E E D S
    N . M . L O M A X @ L E E D S . A C . U K
    

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