Cited by 326Mobile Health and mHealth ApplicationsContext-Aware Activity Recognition SystemsInnovative Human-Technology Interaction

Wearable activity trackers, accuracy, adoption, acceptance and health impact: A systematic literature review

Open access
Shin, Grace, Jarrahi, Mohammad Hossein, Fei, Yu, Karami, Amir, Gafinowitz, Nicci, Byun, Ahjung, Lu, Xiaopeng·2019·Journal of Biomedical Informatics

Abstract

Wearable activity trackers (WAT) are electronic monitoring devices that enable users to track and monitor their health-related physical fitness metrics including steps taken, level of activity, walking distance, heart rate, and sleep patterns. Despite the proliferation of these devices in various contexts of use and rising research interests, there is limited understanding of the broad research landscape. The purpose of this systematic review is therefore to synthesize the existing wealth of research on WAT, and to provide a comprehensive summary based on common themes and approaches. This article includes academic work published between 2013 and 2017 in PubMed, Embase, Scopus, Web of Science, ACM Digital Library, and Google Scholar. A final list of 463 articles was analyzed for this review. Topic modeling methods were used to identify six key themes (topics) of WAT research, namely: (1) Technology Focus, (2) Patient Treatment and Medical Settings, (3) Behavior Change, (4) Acceptance and Adoption (Abandonment), (5) Self-monitoring Data Centered, and (6) Privacy. We take an interdisciplinary approach to wearable activity trackers to propose several new research questions. The most important research gap we identify is to attempt to understand the rich human-information interaction that is enabled by WAT adoption.

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  • Demand for wearable devices has risen substantially in recent years.

    “Wearable devices hold great promise, particularly for data generation for cutting-edge health research, and their demand has risen considerably in the last few years [1-3].”
  • Many studies have focused on novel technologies, presenting prototypes, or investigating feasibility and acceptance of a wearable device in a specific setting.

    “Many studies have focused on novel technologies, presenting prototypes, or investigating the feasibility and acceptance of a wearable device in a specific setting [3,27].”
  • Similar to other reviews, most devices were wrist-worn fitness trackers and accelerometers, and most were from Fitbit, measuring PA, HR, and sleep.

    “Similar to other reviews, most devices were wrist-worn fitness trackers and accelerometers, and most of them are from the company Fitbit, measuring PA, HR, and sleep [3,27,31,224,225].”
  • These vital signs and device types seem to become the standard in wearable research.

    “These vital signs and device types seem to become the standard in wearable research [3,27,31,224,225].”
  • There is a positive trend in wearable studies, underlining growing interest in wearables in health research.

    “Overall, we have identified a positive trend in wearable studies, underlining the growing interest in wearables in health research, in line with other reviews [3,224-226].”

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6 of the 182 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. Charu C. Aggarwal, Chengxiang Zhai, Mining Text, Data. Springer Science & Business Media, 2012.
  2. IDC. Worldwide Wearables Market Grows 7.3% in Q3 2017 as Smart Wearables Rise and Basic Wearables Decline, Says IDC. Press release from IDC on November 30, 2017. https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS43260217. Accessed March 25, 2019.

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Authors
Shin, G., Jarrahi, M. H., Fei, Y., Karami, A., Gafinowitz, N., Byun, A., & Lu, X.
Affiliations
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US)
  • University of South Carolina (US)
  • Seoul National University (KR)
Corresponding author
Shin, Grace
Venue
Journal of Biomedical Informatics
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2019-05
Volume
93
Pages
103153
ISSN
1532-0464 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2927358919
Cited by
326
References
182
Citations by year
2026: 23 · 2025: 45 · 2024: 45 · 2023: 47 · 2022: 52 · 2021: 63 · 2020: 42 · 2019: 9
FWCI
7.61
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Journal of Biomedical Informatics (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Scholar Commons (University of South Carolina) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Context-Aware Activity Recognition Systems
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Innovative Human-Technology Interaction
Keywords
wearable activity trackers, physical activity monitoring, device accuracy, technology adoption, user acceptance, abandonment, behavior change, self-monitoring, privacy, human-computer interaction, health effects, wearable sensors
MeSH terms
Fitness Trackers, Adult, Diffusion of Innovation, Humans, Patient Acceptance of Health Care

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