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Performance of the ActiGraph accelerometer using a national population-based sample of youth and adults
1Department of Epidemiology, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina, 137 East Franklin Street, Suite 306, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 27514, USA. Kelly_evenson@unc.edu.
Background:
Accelerometer 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.
Methods:
Using 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.
Results:
On 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.
Conclusion:
The 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.
