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. 2021 Mar 15;11(1):5895.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-85358-4.

Use of wearable sensors to assess compliance of asthmatic children in response to lockdown measures for the COVID-19 epidemic

Panayiotis Kouis  1 , Antonis Michanikou  1 , Pinelopi Anagnostopoulou  1   2 , Emmanouil Galanakis  3 , Eleni Michaelidou  3 , Helen Dimitriou  3 , Andreas M Matthaiou  1 , Paraskevi Kinni  1 , Souzana Achilleos  4 , Harris Zacharatos  5   6 , Stefania I Papatheodorou  7 , Petros Koutrakis  8 , Georgios K Nikolopoulos  9 , Panayiotis K Yiallouros  10
Affiliations

Use of wearable sensors to assess compliance of asthmatic children in response to lockdown measures for the COVID-19 epidemic

Panayiotis Kouis et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Between March and April 2020, Cyprus and Greece health authorities enforced three escalated levels of public health interventions to control the COVID-19 pandemic. We quantified compliance of 108 asthmatic schoolchildren (53 from Cyprus, 55 from Greece, mean age 9.7 years) from both countries to intervention levels, using wearable sensors to continuously track personal location and physical activity. Changes in 'fraction time spent at home' and 'total steps/day' were assessed with a mixed-effects model adjusting for confounders. We observed significant mean increases in 'fraction time spent at home' in Cyprus and Greece, during each intervention level by 41.4% and 14.3% (level 1), 48.7% and 23.1% (level 2) and 45.2% and 32.0% (level 3), respectively. Physical activity in Cyprus and Greece demonstrated significant mean decreases by - 2,531 and - 1,191 (level 1), - 3,638 and - 2,337 (level 2) and - 3,644 and - 1,961 (level 3) total steps/day, respectively. Significant independent effects of weekends and age were found on 'fraction time spent at home'. Similarly, weekends, age, humidity and gender had an independent effect on physical activity. We suggest that wearable technology provides objective, continuous, real-time location and activity data making possible to inform in a timely manner public health officials on compliance to various tiers of public health interventions during a pandemic.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Changes in mobility in response to public health interventions among asthmatic children. Weekly averages of fraction time spent at home and steps/day, before and during three levels of public health interventions in asthmatic children in Cyprus (A) and Greece (B).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Comparison of mobility of asthmatic children recorded in February–April 2019 and February–April 2020 in Cyprus and Crete. Weekly averages of fraction time spent at home and steps/day during the same period of 2019 and 2020 in Cyprus (A) and Greece (B) (February–April).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Timeline of public health interventions in Cyprus and Greece. Timeline of the study recordings in relation to introduction of public health interventions in Cyprus (A) and Greece (B) during March–April 2020.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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