Zan Gao, PhD, associate professor in the School of Kinesiology and director of Physical Activity Epidemiology Laboratory, recently published a review article titled “The Dilemma of Analyzing Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior with Wrist Accelerometer Data: Challenges and Opportunities” as the first author in the Journal of Clinical Medicine. Other co-authors are his former graduate students, Drs. Wenxi Liu, Daniel J. McDonough, Nan Zeng, and Jung Eun Lee.

This paper reviewed different methodologies for analyzing wrist-worn accelerometer data and offered cutting edge, yet appropriate analysis plans for wrist-worn accelerometer data in the assessment of physical behavior. In this paper, the authors first discussed the fundamentals of wrist-worn accelerometer data, followed by various methods of processing these data (e.g., cut points, steps per minute, machine learning), and then they discussed the opportunities, challenges, and directions for future studies in this area of inquiry. This is the most comprehensive paper to date regarding the analysis and interpretation of free-living physical activity data derived from wrist-worn accelerometers, aiming to help establish a blueprint for processing wrist-derived accelerometer data.