The purpose of this meta-analysis was to quantify the difference in physical activity and sleep estimates assessed via 1) movement, 2) heart rate (HR), or 3) the combination of movement and HR (MOVE+HR) compared to criterion indicators of the outcomes. Searches in four electronic databases were executed September 21-24 of 2021. Weighted mean was calculated from standardized group-level estimates of mean percent error (MPE) and mean absolute percent error (MAPE) of the proxy signal compared to the criterion measurement method for physical activity, HR, or sleep. Standardized mean difference (SMD) effect sizes between the proxy and criterion estimates were calculated for each study across all outcomes, and meta-regression analyses were conducted. Two-One-Sided-Tests method were conducted to metaanalytically evaluate the equivalence of the proxy and criterion. Thirty-nine studies (physical activity k = 29 and sleep k = 10) were identified for data extraction. Sample size weighted means for MPE were -38.0%, 7.8%, -1.4%, and -0.6% for physical activity movement only, HR only, MOVE+HR, and sleep MOVE+HR, respectively. Sample size weighted means for MAPE were 41.4%, 32.6%, 13.3%, and 10.8% for physical activity movement only, HR only, MOVE+HR, and sleep MOVE+HR, respectively. Few estimates were statistically equivalent at a SMD of 0.8. Estimates of physical activity from MOVE+HR were not statistically significantly different from estimates based on movement or HR only. For sleep, included studies based their estimates solely on the combination of MOVE+HR, so it was impossible to determine if the combination produced significantly different estimates than either method alone.
Keywords: Measurement; accelerometry; calibration; research-grade; sensors; validation.