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Methods

Reliability of accelerometer-determined physical activity and sedentary behavior in school-aged children: a 12-country study

International Journal of Obesity Supplements volume 5, pages S29–S35 (2015)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Objectives:

Focused on the accelerometer-determined physical activity and sedentary time metrics in 9–11-year-old children, we sought to determine the following: (i) number of days that are necessary to achieve reliable estimates (G⩾0.8); (ii) proportion of variance attributed to different facets (participants and days) of reliability estimates; and (iii) actual reliability of data as collected in The International Study of Childhood Obesity, Lifestyle and Environment (ISCOLE).

Methods:

The analytical sample consisted of 6025 children (55% girls) from sites in 12 countries. Physical activity and sedentary time metrics measures were assessed for up to 7 consecutive days for 24 h per day with a waist-worn ActiGraph GT3X+. Generalizability theory using R software was used to investigate the objectives i and ii. Intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC) were computed using SAS PROC GLM to inform objective iii.

Results:

The estimated minimum number of days required to achieve a reliability estimate of G⩾0.8 ranged from 5 to 9 for boys and 3 to 11 for girls for light physical activity (LPA); 5 to 9 and 3 to 10, for moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA); 5 to 10 and 4 to 10 for total activity counts; and 7 to 11 and 6 to 11 for sedentary time, respectively. For all variables investigated, the ‘participant’ facet accounted for 30–50% of the variability, whereas the ‘days’ facet accounted for ⩽5%, and the interaction (P × D) accounted for 50–70% of the variability. The actual reliability for boys in ISCOLE ranged from ICCs of 0.78 to 0.86, 0.73 to 0.85 and 0.72 to 0.86 for LPA, MVPA and total activity counts, respectively, and 0.67 to 0.79 for sedentary time. The corresponding values for girls were 0.80–0.88, 0.70–0.89, 0.74–0.86 and 0.64–0.80.

Conclusions:

It was rare that only 4 days from all participants would be enough to achieve desirable reliability estimates. However, asking participants to wear the device for 7 days and requiring ⩾4 days of data to include the participant in the analysis might be an appropriate approach to achieve reliable estimates for most accelerometer-derived metrics.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the ISCOLE External Advisory Board and the ISCOLE participants and their families who made this study possible. A membership list of the ISCOLE Research Group and External Advisory Board is included in Katzmarzyk et al. (this issue). ISCOLE was funded by The Coca-Cola Company.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Exercise Science, School of Education, University of Syracuse, Syracuse, NY, USA

    T V Barreira

  2. Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, LA, USA

    T V Barreira, J M Schuna, C Tudor-Locke, T S Church, G Hu & P T Katzmarzyk

  3. School of Biological and Population Health Sciences Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA

    J M Schuna

  4. Department of Kinesiology, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, USA

    C Tudor-Locke

  5. Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    J-P Chaput & M S Tremblay

  6. Department of Food and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    M Fogelholm

  7. St Johns Research Institute, Bangalore, India

    R Kuriyan & A Kurpad

  8. Department of Human Biology, Division of Exercise Science and Sports Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

    E V Lambert

  9. Alliance for Research in Exercise Nutrition and Activity (ARENA), School of Health Sciences, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia

    C Maher & T Olds

  10. CIFI2D, Faculdade de Desporto, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal

    J Maia

  11. Centro de Estudos do Laboratório de Aptidão Física de São Caetano do Sul (CELAFISCS), Sao Paulo, Brazil

    V Matsudo

  12. Department of Recreation Management and Exercise Science, Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya

    V Onywera

  13. School of Medicine, Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia

    O L Sarmiento

  14. Department for Health, University of Bath, Bath, UK

    M Standage

  15. Tianjin Women’s and Children’s Health Center, Tianjin, China

    P Zhao

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  1. T V Barreira
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  19. P Zhao
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  20. P T Katzmarzyk
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to T V Barreira.

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Competing interests

MF has received a research grant from Fazer Finland and has received an honorarium for speaking for Merck. AK has been a member of the Advisory Boards of Dupont and McCain Foods. RK has received a research grant from Abbott Nutrition Research and Development. VM is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Actigraph and has received an honorarium for speaking for The Coca-Cola Company. TO has received an honorarium for speaking for The Coca-Cola Company. The remaining authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Barreira, T., Schuna, J., Tudor-Locke, C. et al. Reliability of accelerometer-determined physical activity and sedentary behavior in school-aged children: a 12-country study. Int J Obes Supp 5 (Suppl 2), S29–S35 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/ijosup.2015.16

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