Background: This paper examined whether the criterion validity of step count (SC), energy expenditure (EE), and heart rate (HR) varied across studies depending on the average age, body mass index (BMI), and predominant gender of participants.
Methods: Data from 1536 studies examining the validity of various wearable devices were used. Separate multilevel regression models examined the associations among age, gender, and BMI with device criterion validity assessed using mean absolute percent error (MAPE) at the study level.
Results: MAPE values were reported in 970 studies for SC, 328 for EE, and 238 for HR, respectively. There were several significant differences in MAPE between age, gender, and BMI categories for SC, EE, and HR. SC MAPE was significantly different for older adults compared with adults. Compared with studies among normal-weight populations, MAPE was greater among studies with overweight samples for SC, HR, and EE. Comparing studies with more women than men, MAPE was significantly greater for EE and HR.
Conclusions: There are important differences in the criterion validity of commercial wearable devices across studies of varying ages, BMIs, and genders. Few studies have examined differences in error between different age groups, particularly for EE and HR.
Keywords: age; body mass index; equity; gender; step count.