Ambulatory Assessment for Physical Activity Research: State of the Science, Best Practices and Future Directions.

Technological and digital progress benefits physical activity (PA) research. Here we compiled expert knowledge on how Ambulatory Assessment (AA) is utilized to advance PA research, i.e., we present results of the 2nd International CAPA Workshop 2019 "Physical Activity Assessment - State of the Science, Best Practices, Future Directions" where invited researchers with experience in PA assessment, evaluation, technology and application participated. First, we provide readers with the state of the AA science, then we give best practice recommendations on how to measure PA via AA and shed light on methodological frontiers, and we furthermore discuss future directions. AA encompasses a class of methods that allows the study of PA and its behavioral, biological and physiological correlates as they unfold in everyday life. AA includes monitoring of movement (e.g., via accelerometry), physiological function (e.g., via mobile electrocardiogram), contextual information (e.g., via geolocation-tracking), and ecological momentary assessment (EMA; e.g., electronic diaries) to capture self-reported information. The strengths of AA are data assessment that near realtime, which minimizes retrospective biases in real-world settings, consequentially enabling ecological valid findings. Importantly, AA enables multiple assessments across time within subjects resulting in intensive longitudinal data (ILD), which allows unraveling within-person determinants of PA in everyday life. In this paper, we show how AA methods such as triggered e-diaries and geolocation-tracking can be used to measure PA and its correlates, and furthermore how these findings may translate into real-life interventions. In sum, AA provides numerous possibilities for PA research, especially the opportunity to tackle within- subject antecedents, concomitants, and consequences of PA as they unfold in everyday life. In-depth insights on determinants of PA could help us design and deliver impactful interventions in real-world contexts, thus enabling us to solve critical health issues in the 21st century such as insufficient PA and high levels of sedentary behavior.

Understanding Alcohol Consumption and Its Antecedents and Consequences in Daily Life: The Why and the How.

Most of the scientific research on alcohol consumption behavior in humans is laboratory-based, as reflected by the ratio of laboratory vs. real-life contributions to this handbook. Studies in daily life, although having a long history in addiction research (Shiffman et al., Ann Behav Med 16:203-209, 1994), are in the minority. This is surprising, given that patients with substance use disorders are suffering in daily life and not in the laboratory setting. In other words, drinking patterns and symptoms of alcohol use disorder evolve not in the lab but in daily life, where patients show difficulties in limiting their alcohol intake accompanied with all kinds of related problems. The ultimate goal of all interventions, independent of being tailored toward restricted drinking or abstinence, is again an altered behavior in real life. Translated to practice, patients' behavior in the lab may not translate to daily life, often showing minimal ecological validity. Therefore, we have to question to which degree lab-based research findings translate into daily life. Fortunately, the current digital revolution provided us with more and more tools, enabling us to monitor, analyze, and change behavior in human everyday life. Our chapter does not intend to give a comprehensive overview of the daily life research on alcohol consumption over the last few decades as others do (Morgenstern et al., Alcohol Res Curr Rev 36:109, 2014; Piasecki, Alcohol Clin Exp Res 43:564-577, 2019; Shiffman, Psychol Asses 21:486-497, 2009; Votaw and Witkiewitz, Clin Psychol Sci 9:535-562, 2021; Wray et al., Alcohol Res Curr Rev 36:19-27, 2014). Instead, we aim at the following: first, to highlight the key advantages of ecological momentary assessment to motivate scientists to add daily life research components to their laboratory research and, second, to provide some guidance on how to begin with daily life research.

Ambulatory assessment for precision psychiatry: Foundations, current developments and future avenues.

Precision psychiatry stands to benefit from the latest digital technologies for assessment and analyses to tailor treatment towards individuals. Insights into dynamic psychological processes as they unfold in humans' everyday life can critically add value in understanding symptomatology and environmental stressors to provide individualized treatment where and when needed. Towards this goal, ambulatory assessment encompasses methodological approaches to investigate behavioral, physiological, and biological processes in humans' everyday life. It combines repeated assessments of symptomatology over time, e.g., via Ecological Momentary Assessment (e.g., smartphone-diaries), with monitoring of physical behavior, environmental characteristics (such as geolocations, social interactions) and physiological function via sensors, e.g., mobile accelerometers, global-positioning-systems, and electrocardiography. In this review, we expand on promises of ambulatory assessment in the investigation of mental states (e.g., real-life, dynamical and contextual perspective), on chances for precision psychiatry such as the prediction of courses of psychiatric disorders, detection of tipping points and critical windows of relapse, and treatment effects as exemplified by ongoing projects, and on future avenues of how ambulatory interventions can benefit personalized care for psychiatric patients (e.g., through real-time feedback in everyday life). Ambulatory assessment is a key contributor to precision psychiatry, opening up promising avenues in research, diagnoses, prevention and treatment.