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Effectiveness of Wearable Trackers on Physical Activity in Healthy Adults: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials
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Abstract
BACKGROUND: Wearable trackers are an increasingly popular tool among healthy adults and are used to facilitate self-monitoring of physical activity. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to systematically review the effectiveness of wearable trackers for improving physical activity and weight reduction among healthy adults. METHODS: This review used the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) methodology and reporting criteria. English-language randomized controlled trials with more than 20 participants from MEDLINE, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, PubMed, and Scopus (2000-2017) were identified. Studies were eligible for inclusion if they reported an intervention group using wearable trackers, reporting steps per day, total moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, activity, physical activity, energy expenditure, and weight reduction. RESULTS: Twelve eligible studies with a total of 1693 participants met the inclusion criteria. The weighted average age was 40.7 years (95% CI 31.1-50.3), with 64.4% women. The mean intervention duration was 21.4 weeks (95% CI 6.1-36.7). The usage of wearable trackers was associated with increased physical activity (standardized mean difference 0.449, 95% CI 0.10-0.80; P=.01). In the subgroup analyses, however, wearable trackers demonstrated no clear benefit for physical activity or weight reduction. CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest that the use of wearable trackers in healthy adults may be associated with modest short-term increases in physical activity. Further data are required to determine if a sustained benefit is associated with wearable tracker usage.
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“For step count, three meta-analyses of consumer activity trackers reported effect sizes 8,55,66 ranging from 0•23 (95% CI 0•15 to 0•32) to 0•33 (0•16 to 0•50; ie, small effects), all statistically significant (appendix p 35).”
From Effectiveness of wearable activity trackers to increase physical activity and improve health: a systematic review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. (2022) · cites this paper as [66]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Tang, M. S. S., Moore, K., McGavigan, A., Clark, R. A., & Ganesan, A. N.
- Affiliations
- Flinders University (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Ganesan, Anand N
- Venue
- JMIR mhealth and uhealth
- Publisher
- JMIR Publications Inc.
- Published
- 2020-07-22
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- e15576
- ISSN
- 2291-5222 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC7407266
- OpenAlex
- W3025555717
- Cited by
- 134
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2026: 17 · 2025: 24 · 2024: 36 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 32 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 2
- FWCI
- 1.78
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- JMIR mhealth and uhealth (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- National Heart Foundation of Australia (APP ID. 100847, 100847)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Physical Activity and Health
- 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
- Keywords
- wearable activity trackers, physical activity, self-monitoring, weight loss, energy expenditure, healthy adults, step count, moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, mobile health intervention
- MeSH terms
- Fitness Trackers, Adult, Health Status, Humans, Weight Loss, Exercise, Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic
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