Meeting w/ Dr. Hidde van der Ploeg

This week I met with Dr. Hidde van der Ploeg, a graduate of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He's been with CPAH for approximately 1.5 years, he was hired at the same time a Heather and has 2.5 years remaining. We discussed his Time Use research, he currently has 2 projects he's working on.
He is collecting 10 days of data on 100-200 people using the new little "baby MTI's." He is very happy with the smaller units as they are far easier to download with a USB port and there is no need calibrate! The unit is charged via the USB and can manage to hold a charge for 14 days. When epochs are set at 10 second intervals you can collect data for 10 weeks and expect accurate information, however, the unit will need to be charged every 2 weeks.
Subjects wear the monitor for 10 days, diary (see attached) information is reported on days 2, nine and ten. Half of the subjects are asked to complete the IPAC questionnaire (a 7 day recall). Hidde will be looking at time spent in sedentary, light, and moderate-vigorous activities, he's looking for a coefficient of .80 Hmmmmmmmmmmm, sound familiar? We talked extensively about the test/retest methodology used for the time use diaries.
His second research project involves looking at the reliability and validity of physical activity measures in the Austrailian Bureau of Statistics data. Years reported include 1992, 1997 and 2006; currently he is looking at 1997 and 2006 has not been released. The information he is looking at is similar to our Household Travel Survey. He is lookiing at kids active commuting behavior for 71,81, 91,97 and then the survey contiunes every 3 years thereafter. He said that the methodology changed several times over the years and it is not looking to promising.