Socio-demographic determinants of physical activity and app usage from smartphone data

The increasing ubiquity of smartphones provides a potential new data source to capture physical activity behaviours. Though not designed as a research tool, these secondary data have the potential to capture a large population over a more extensive spatial area and with longer temporality than current methods afford. This paper uses one such secondary data source from a commercial app designed to incentivise activity. We explore the new insights these data provide, alongside the sociodemographic profile of those using physical activity apps, to gain insight into both physical activity behaviour and determinants of app usage in order to evaluate the suitability of the app in providing insights into the physical activity of the population. We find app usage to be higher in females, those aged 25–50, and users more likely to live in areas where a higher proportion of the population are of a lower socioeconomic status. We ascertain longer-term patterns of app usage with increasing age and more male users reaching physical activity guideline recommendations despite longer daily activity duration recorded by female users. Additionally, we identify key weekly and seasonal trends in physical activity. This is one of the first studies to utilise a large volume of secondary physical activity app data to co-investigate usage alongside activity behaviour captured.