ONAPS Study on Active Lifestyle Benefits During a Pandemic to Recruit Garmin Users

How has the coronavirus lockdown affected your physical activity? Are you doing more? Less? And what effect are these changes having on your stress and sleep levels? These questions can be answered using your Garmin wearable. But what if the same data could also help answer bigger questions about the links between isolation, physical activity and any lasting impacts post-pandemic?

This is the goal of a new study being carried out by The National Observatory for Physical Activity and Sedentary Living, or ONAPS, in France. In collaboration with several other institutions (including Clermont-Ferrand University Hospital Centre, Clermont Auvergne University and Auvergne Human Nutrition Research Centre) and companies Garmin and Kiplin, the study hopes to determine the influence of physical and sports activity in times of epidemic.

Objective metrics tracked by Garmin wearables such as step count and active minutes will be used to complement more subjective data obtained through questionnaires as well as participants’ perceived health and stress levels before, during and after lockdown. Although Garmin wearables are not designed or intended to be used to monitor or diagnose any diseases or conditions, the activity data they track can provide useful insights and trends. The Garmin Health ecosystem makes it possible to provide this crucial information to the COVI-ACTIF study.

Garmin is supporting the COVI-ACTIF study by calling on users to consider voluntarily sharing their activity data. Thanks to an integration with the Garmin Health API, the Kiplin platform can receive data from users who voluntarily consent to share their activity information with the study.

Results from the study, being led by Professor Martine Duclos, highlight the effects a pandemic on health and activity. These results could also help promote the value and importance of physical and sports activity at the population level, promoting change and enabling the prescription of appropriate physical activity to groups with a particular need. If you would like to be a part of this study and help to promote health through physical activity, please visit: http://www.onaps.fr/news/etude-covi-actif/.