Use of wearable sensors to assess compliance of asthmatic children in response to lockdown measures for the COVID-19 epidemic
Journal
Scientific Reports
Date Issued
December 2021
Author(s)
DOI
10.1038/s41598-021-85358-4
Abstract
Between March and April 2020, Cyprus and Greece health authorities enforced three escalated levels of public health interventions to control the COVID-19 pandemic. We quantified compliance of 108 asthmatic schoolchildren (53 from Cyprus, 55 from Greece, mean age 9.7 years) from both countries to intervention levels, using wearable sensors to continuously track personal location and physical activity. Changes in ‘fraction time spent at home’ and ‘total steps/day’ were assessed with a mixed-effects model adjusting for confounders. We observed significant mean increases in ‘fraction time spent at home’ in Cyprus and Greece, during each intervention level by 41.4% and 14.3% (level 1), 48.7% and 23.1% (level 2) and 45.2% and 32.0% (level 3), respectively. Physical activity in Cyprus and Greece demonstrated significant mean decreases by − 2,531 and − 1,191 (level 1), − 3,638 and − 2,337 (level 2) and − 3,644 and − 1,961 (level 3) total steps/day, respectively. Significant independent effects of weekends and age were found on ‘fraction time spent at home’. Similarly, weekends, age, humidity and gender had an independent effect on physical activity. We suggest that wearable technology provides objective, continuous, real-time location and activity data making possible to inform in a timely manner public health officials on compliance to various tiers of public health interventions during a pandemic.
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
![Thumbnail Image]()
Name
41598_2021_85358_MOESM1_ESM.pdf
Size
181.82 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
e230b3db12ea71f3b46ffbd6071077ea
Name
s41598-021-85358-4.pdf
Size
1.54 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
5b4f7be6cf90d1bb61354f68a0ae4615