Approved Research

The role of 24-hour physical behaviours and health and multimorbidity outcomes in UK Biobank

Lay summary

Although physical activity and sleep has been associated with numerous health and mortality outcomes, epidemiological evidence has relied mostly on self-reported measures, which are prone to reporting bias and measurement error. Accelerometer-derived measures and "wearables" are beginning to provide new and unique insights; however, the characterisation of different physical and sleep behaviours from accelerometer data (e.g., types, volumes, intensities, patterns) remain a work in progress. This project aims to examine associations between physical activity (e.g. self-reported and accelerometer-assessed metrics of activity intensity and volume) and sleep with health outcomes to inform more translatable PA outcomes/tools within clinical contexts. Doing so will enable us to generate important and understandable messages which will positively impact public health promotion (e.g. every 500 steps/day difference in activity is associated with a specific difference in the risk of a health outcome). Indeed, the linkage of device-measured activity to step counts/cadence will create a framework for future personalised prevention and disease management strategies using relevant healthcare practitioner messages and consumer wearables, with potential for direct utility into public health and clinical practice. The project duration will be up to 36 months to allow time to download and process the large volume of data required to generate these metrics.