Let your phone do the walking

Action 4.4, Action Plan for Walking 2022–2024

Department/Agency: Health and Wellbeing Queensland

Status: Complete

Research how telecommunications data can be used to monitor and evaluate walking and other physical activity at a population level. Share findings.

Overview

Health and Wellbeing Queensland examined the potential of using deidentified movement data from mobile phones to gain valuable insights into the physical activity patterns of adults. The project explored whether this data could provide insights into monitoring and evaluation of walking and other physical activity. It found there is potential for the data to provide valuable insights, but achieving this requires considerable technical skills and content knowledge.

Achievements

The primary objective of the project was to investigate the potential of mobility data from mobile phones to provide insights into physical activity levels, with a specific focus on walking behaviour. The data used in the project consisted of mobile phone cellular data.

The researchers compared the data with AusPlay surveys, a national population tracking survey funded and led by the Australian Sports Commission, and the Queensland Preventive Health Survey. They wanted to evaluate whether the mobility data could offer a more detailed and timely perspective on physical activity compared to traditional population surveys.

The researchers analysed the mobility data to measure the proportion of the adult population that engaged in sufficient physical activity through walking, bike riding, running and scootering. They gained insights into the frequency, duration, and locations of these physical activities that could not be easily obtained through population surveys.

The researchers concluded that valuable data and insights can be drawn from the mobility data about walking for adults aged 20 or older, for example, the proportion of the population achieving sufficient levels of physical activity. However, considerable technical skills coupled with content knowledge are required to extrapolate insights from the technology and data.

More information

A report on the research is available upon request at research@hw.qld.gov.au