Comparison of physical activity and sedentary behavior between telework and office work in a working population during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The surge in telework due to technological advances and confinement during the coronavirus disease pandemic of 2019 (COVID-19) has drawn attention to its effects on physical activity (PA) and sedentary behavior (SB). This review aimed to analyze the impact of telework compared to office work in PA and SB, assessed by validated questionnaires and accelerometers during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: Observational studies that evaluated the effect of telework in PA and SB compared to office work were identified by literature searches in three electronic databases (PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus) published up to January 2023. Studies were included when written in English, including observational design, evaluating the effect of telework on PA and/or SB compared to office work, and using validated questionnaires and accelerometers to assess PA and/or SB. The meta-analysis evaluated continuous outcomes with a random-effect model using Review Manager Web 5 (Cochrane Collaboration, Oxford, UK). The risk of bias was assessed using the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute quality assessment tool for Observational studies. RESULTS: Twelve observational studies, with a total of 9,059 participants, were included in this study. Ten studies assessed PA and SB with questionnaires and two with accelerometers. A significant decrease of -0.33 (95% CI -0.59, -0.08) in light PA was observed, while no significant changes were observed for total PA (-0.19 [-0.42, 0.04]), moderate to vigorous PA (-0.44 [-1.32, 0.44]) and SB (0.12 [-0.20, 0.44]). CONCLUSIONS: Telework significantly decreases light PA in a working population during the COVID-19 pandemic. More research using validated measurement tools to assess PA and SB is needed to confirm this result. Given the extensive health benefits of physical activity and reduced sedentary behavior, public health resources must focus on encouraging PA and minimizing SB, especially among teleworkers. TRAIL REGISTRATION: The review protocol was registered in the Prospero database (CRD42024502374).
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.015 | 0.049 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.018 | 0.035 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.006 | 0.008 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".