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There are seven instruments that collect physical activity data by self reports.

Harvard PAQ

The Harvard Physical Activity Questionnaire asked participants to recall the time spent engaging in various physical and sedentary activities over the past 12 months. The Harvard Physical Activity Questionnaire is a subset of a questionnaire given out for the Harvard Alumni Health Study in 1962. The questionnaire quantifies each participant's activity level estimates energy expenditure per activity and at various energy levels, light intensity, moderate, vigorous, active, or sedentary.

Click here for data dictionaries and formats for the PAQ-Harvard files. Datasets can be obtained by submitting a request.

Summary Available Data
  • Self-reported activity data
  • Recalls last 12 months
  • 1 administrations in the 12th month
  • ~770 participants with results
  • Average hours of various exercises per week in the past year
  • METs for each activity calculated from the weekly hours for each activity
  • Overall summary of METs and subtotals of types of activities