Indication
Pedometers have become increasingly popular in recent years and have been used in a variety of settings. Pedometers are useful in clinical and community-wide intervention seeking to increase activity and have been successfully used as an incentive to increase activity through walking. The ‘Rockhampton 10,000 steps a day’ (Queensland, Australia) and the Colorado (Denver, USA) ‘On the Move’ programs have led to state/country wide programs to increase activity. Bravata et al (2007) systematically reviewed the use of pedometers as an intervention tool to improve physical activity levels. The results suggested that the use of a pedometer is associated with significant increases in physical activity.
The low cost of pedometers makes them feasible for large scale studies (i.e. >1000 subjects). Their economic feasibility means that pedometers can also be used for surveillance and international comparisons. They can be used to:
- Distinguish between individuals who vary based on steps per day
- Measure increases in walking activity in interventions aiming to increase walking
- Conduct cross-study comparisons of different populations
- Compare time trends of walking activity (if data at different time points is available)
- For the public, they are an easy way to see if they are meeting step recommendations
These applications are dependent on a limited range of pedometers only being used and differences in steps between these pedometer brands are not large (Schneider et al, 2004).