A calibration protocol for population-specific accelerometer cut-points in children
Mackintosh, Kelly A., Fairclough, Stuart J., Stratton, Gareth and Ridgers, Nicola D. 2012, A calibration protocol for population-specific accelerometer cut-points in children, PLoS One, vol. 7, no. 5, Article number e36919, pp. 1-6.
To test a field-based protocol using intermittent activities representative of children's physical activity behaviours, to generate behaviourally valid, population-specific accelerometer cut-points for sedentary behaviour, moderate, and vigorous physical activity. Methods
Twenty-eight children (46% boys) aged 10–11 years wore a hip-mounted uniaxial GT1M ActiGraph and engaged in 6 activities representative of children's play. A validated direct observation protocol was used as the criterion measure of physical activity. Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) curve analyses were conducted with four semi-structured activities to determine the accelerometer cut-points. To examine classification differences, cut-points were cross-validated with free-play and DVD viewing activities. Results
Cut-points of ≤372, >2160 and >4806 counts•min−1 representing sedentary, moderate and vigorous intensity thresholds, respectively, provided the optimal balance between the related needs for sensitivity (accurately detecting activity) and specificity (limiting misclassification of the activity). Cross-validation data demonstrated that these values yielded the best overall kappa scores (0.97; 0.71; 0.62), and a high classification agreement (98.6%; 89.0%; 87.2%), respectively. Specificity values of 96–97% showed that the developed cut-points accurately detected physical activity, and sensitivity values (89–99%) indicated that minutes of activity were seldom incorrectly classified as inactivity. Conclusion
The development of an inexpensive and replicable field-based protocol to generate behaviourally valid and population-specific accelerometer cut-points may improve the classification of physical activity levels in children, which could enhance subsequent intervention and observational studies.
Notes
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Language
eng
Field of Research
110699 Human Movement and Sports Science not elsewhere classified
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