Measuring up

Smaller, cheaper, faster gizmos help health researchers measure physical activity outputs more accurately

Jane Hurly - 14 July 2011

Smaller, sleeker, faster, cheaper, easier.

That's the reality of the fast-paced world of technology, where today's brave new gadget is tomorrow's clunky paperweight.

It's also where innovative new technological devices to measure physical activity are fast becoming commonplace as scientists seek better and more accurate and robust measures of physical activity output of participants in their studies.

Dr. John Spence, who studies the impact of the built environment on physical activity behaviours, and a 2012 McCalla professorship recipient, sees enormous opportunity in embracing these ingenious new measurement devices in his research and teaching, and particularly in training graduate students in their use.

Consequently Spence will spend a year on a "technology odyssey" examining the technologies available around the globe and then developing a graduate level course on physical activity measurement designed to give graduate students a thorough grounding in measurement technology theory and practice.

The need is undeniable, he says. "As the cost of technology has decreased so there's been a growing demand for technologies that were exorbitantly priced a year ago, and that are suddenly well within reach," he says. "As a result of that there's an expectation that, even for a master's thesis, if the student is measuring physical activity, a more direct measure is required."

Embracing technology has already become the new gold standard for attracting research funding and having one's papers accepted by high-impact journals.

"The standard in the literature now is that unless you're doing some direct measure of activity it's unlikely that you'll get published - and definitely not in the journals we consider the good to top-rated journals," says Spence. "In Canada it will become more and more difficult to acquire research funding for the same reason. It's important, then, that our students are being exposed to these devices and trained to use them so they can understand what the choices are and how to use them."

Spence says the new technologies will also enhance his own research measuring physical and sedentary behaviours as influenced by the built environment. "Accurately measuring physical activity output is becoming more important because we are tying levels of activity to health outcomes - things like cardiovascular disease prevention, type 2 diabetes, obesity in kids, and so on - and that measurement error is problematic in trying to demonstrate those associations or effects," he says.

The new measurement technologies will be particularly useful when participants are self-reporting their physical activity for a study.

"When people are self-reporting their physical activity, there is a fair amount of error," Spence says. "There are many new and more accurate devices out there to help us do that and because of rapid advances in technology the devices are becoming much cheaper and much smaller, so there's much less burden on the participant to wear them or use them and, from a researcher's point-of-view, the cost of purchasing the items in bulk is not as prohibitive as it used to be."

Three of those devices include the popular accelerometer, which measures movement, but doesn't tell the researcher when the participant is standing or sitting when they stop moving; the inclinometer which tells the researcher the position of the body according to hip and leg measurement and is particularly good for measuring sedentary behaviours. There's even a camera a study participant can wear around his or her neck which relays information about whether they were moving, what kind of movement they were doing, and whether they did this activity in- or outdoors.

As for the future? Spence says it may all boil down to just one device: the cell phone. "Smart phones are gathering momentum. There are fitness apps for your iPhone already, including pedometers and programs. In the future, we may just embed everything in the smart phone," he says, adding that many countries such as India, already use cell phones extensively to get health messages and information to various populations.

Until then, there's a maze of rather cool and amazing gadgetry and gizmos to navigate as Spence's technology odyssey begins.

The new graduate level course on physical activity measurement technologies will be available for enrollment in fall 2013.