JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Cardiovascular disease accounts for 17.9 million deaths globally each year. Many research study datasets have been collected to answer questions about the relationship between cardiometabolic health and accelerometer-measured physical activity. A further benefit of these datasets is that they can be used to answer additional health research questions beyond the original purpose of the data collected. This scoping review aimed to map the available datasets which have collected accelerometer measured physical activity and markers of cardiometabolic health. This data was then used to inform the development of a publicly available resource, named the Global Physical Activity Dataset catalogue (GPAD). This resource provides an online catalogue of datasets that have assessed cardiometabolic health markers and accelerometer-measured physical activity. The ambition of such a catalogue is to enable easier identification of potentially harmonisable datasets, to answer important questions in this area with greater statistical power and generalisability.

Objective:

This review aims to systematically identify datasets that have measured physical activity using accelerometers and cardiometabolic health markers using either an observational or interventional study design.

Methods:

Databases, trial registries and grey literature (inception until 02/2021-updated search from 02/2021 through 09/2022) were systematically searched to identify studies that have analysed datasets of physical activity and cardiometabolic health outcomes. To be eligible for inclusion, datasets must have measured physical activity using an accelerometric device in adults aged ≥18 years, a sample size greater than 400 participants (unless recruited participants in a lower middle income country where a sample size threshold was reduced to 100), utilised an observational, longitudinal or trial based study design and collected at least one cardiometabolic health marker (unless only body mass was measured). Two reviewers screened the search results to identify eligible studies and from these, the unique names of each dataset were recorded and characteristics about each dataset were extracted from several sources.

Results:

A total of 16,720 study reports were identified and after screening, 319 were eligible, with 122 unique datasets in these study reports meeting the review inclusion criteria. Datasets were found in 49 countries across five continents, with most developed in Europe (n=53) and the least in Africa and Oceania (n=4 and n=3 respectively). The most common accelerometric brand and device wear location was Actigraph and the waist respectively. Height and body mass were the most frequently measured cardiometabolic health markers in datasets (119/122 datasets), followed by blood pressure (82/122 datasets). The number of participants in the included datasets ranged from 103,712 to 120. Once the review processes had been completed the GPAD catalogue was developed to house all the identified datasets.

Conclusions:

This review identified, and mapped the contents of, datasets from around the world that have collected potentially harmonisable accelerometer-measured physical activity and cardiometabolic health markers. The GPAD catalogue is an online open-source resource developed from the results of this review which aims to facilitate the harmonisation of datasets to produce evidence that will reduce the burden of disease from physical inactivity.