Wareham N J, Rennie K L
Department of Community Medicine, University of Cambridge, UK.
Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord. 1998 Aug;22 Suppl 2:S30-8.
Simple epidemiological measures of physical activity have proved sufficient to demonstrate associations with many chronic disease outcomes, but they have infrequently separated physical activity into its different dimensions, nor have they allowed estimation of dose-response effects. Generating greater clarity about the nature of the exposure-disease relationship, is an important step in the development of an appropriate public health intervention. This clarity can only be achieved with reliable and valid measurement instruments, which objectively and quantitatively assess the dimension of physical activity that is of interest for a particular health outcome. Objective techniques, such as heart rate monitoring, which have been directly compared to gold standard assessment methods, may be of use in medium-sized epidemiological studies and as a validation tool for questionnaires to be used in larger studies. The combination of methods with uncorrelated error, would result in an improved estimation of the true exposure and is an important area for research. Improved assessment would be of use in aetiological studies, in tracking trends in physical activity within populations, making objective comparisons between populations and in monitoring the effect of interventions.
简单的身体活动流行病学测量方法已被证明足以显示与许多慢性病结局之间的关联，但这些方法很少将身体活动细分为不同维度，也无法估计剂量反应效应。更清楚地了解暴露与疾病关系的本质，是制定适当公共卫生干预措施的重要一步。只有使用可靠且有效的测量工具才能实现这种清晰度，这些工具能客观、定量地评估与特定健康结局相关的身体活动维度。客观技术，如心率监测，已直接与金标准评估方法进行比较，可用于中等规模的流行病学研究，并作为大型研究中使用的问卷的验证工具。将具有不相关误差的方法结合起来，将能更好地估计真实暴露情况，这是一个重要的研究领域。改进后的评估可用于病因学研究、跟踪人群身体活动趋势、在人群之间进行客观比较以及监测干预效果。
