Meeting Abstracts

Use of wearable cameras to assess population physical

activity behaviours: an observational study
Aiden R Doherty, Paul Kelly, Jacqueline Kerr, Simon Marshall, Melody Oliver, Hannah Badland, Charlie Foster

Abstract
Background Insufficient levels of physical activity are associated with increased morbidity and mortality for many Published Online
non-communicable diseases, as identified by the Chief Medical Officer reports and WHO. However, many physical- November 23, 2012

activity-related health associations have been based on self-report measurement, which is limited by recall, For all Public Health Abstracts
see http://www.thelancet.com/
comprehension, and social desirability bias. Current objective measures, such as the accelerometer, can identify abstracts/public-health-science-
episodes of physical activity. Accelerometers are unable to identify detailed type and context behavioural information. in-the-uk
First-person point-of-view images can capture health-related behaviours, and the context in which they occur. British Heart Foundation
Historically, wearable cameras were bespoke devices, with poor battery life, constructed in individual life-logging Health Promotion Research
research groups. However, the SenseCam is wearable camera, able to record a full day’s worth of behaviours, which Group, Department of Public
Health, University of Oxford,
other researchers now have access to. This study investigates the feasibility of the SenseCam wearable camera to Oxford, UK (A R Doherty PhD,
objectively categorise the type and context of participants’ accelerometer-identified episodes of activity. P Kelly MSc, C Foster PhD);
University of California San
Methods A convenience sample of 52 university workers was recruited for this study from the USA (n=37) and New Diego, San Diego, CA, USA
(J Kerr PhD, S Marshall PhD);
Zealand (n=15). Adults were given an Actical hip-mounted accelerometer (Mini-Mitter, Respironics, Bend, OR, USA) Centre for Physical Activity and
and a SenseCam (Vicon Oxford Metrics Group, UK). The device is a lightweight camera worn via a laynard around the Nutrition, Auckland University
neck. The camera has several sensors including: tri-axial accelerometer, magnetometer, ambient temperature, light of Technology, Auckland, New
level, and passive infrared. Images are captured about once every 20 s, and are based on a change in the aforementioned Zealand (M Oliver PhD); and
McCaughey VicHealth Centre
sensor values. The onboard clocks on the SenseCam and Actical devices were time-synchronised. Participants for the Promotion of Mental
engaged in free-living activities for 3 days. Accelerometer data were cleaned and episodes of sedentary, lifestyle-light, Health and Community
lifestyle-moderate, and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) were identified with standard algorithms. Wellbeing, the University of
Accelerometer episodes were manually categorised according to their context and physical-activity-compendium code Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC,
Australia (H Badland PhD)
as identified from time-matched SenseCam images.
Correspondence to:
Dr Aiden R Doherty, British Heart
Findings 212 days of footage from 49 participants was analysed. SenseCam images, type and context attributes were Foundation Health Promotion
coded for 386 randomly selected episodes, taking 63 s (95% CI 41–86) to manually code each episode. 12 categories, Research Group, Department of
and 114 subcategory types, which aligned with the physical activity compendium, were identified. About a fifth of Public Health, University of
Oxford, Oxford OX3 7LF, UK
episodes could not be classified, mostly because of participant compliance issues. 311 (81%) episodes could be aiden.doherty@dph.ox.ac.uk
categorised. Of the coded data, 183 (59%) were outdoors versus 120 (39%) indoors; 104 (33%) episodes were recorded
as leisure time activities, 103 (33%) transport, 57 (18%) domestic, and 47 (15%) occupational. 104 (33%) of the
exemplar episodes contained direct social interaction and 67 (22%) were in social situations in which the participant
was not involved in direct engagement.

Interpretation Wearable cameras can provide data for objective categorisation of accelerometer-defined episodes of
activity in free-living situations. However, these devices need further validation against other measures of behaviour
such as direct observation. Future studies should investigate state-of-art computer vision techniques to automatically
identify behaviours from SenseCam images. National surveillance systems such as Health Survey for England,
Biobank, and National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey could use wearable cameras in a subset of
participants to develop more appropriate accelerometer classification algorithms of free-living behaviours.

Funding British Heart Foundation (grant 021/P&C/Core/2010/HPRG), Irish Health Research Board (MCPD/2010/12),
and Microsoft Research PhD Scholarship Programme.
Contributors
ARD, PK, JK, MO, and HB organised data collection. ARD developed software instruments, did analysis, and led writing of the report. PK, JK, SM,
MO, HB, and CF provided feedback and intellectual input.
Conflicts of interest
We declare that we have no conflicts of interest.

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