Southeast Asia is experiencing a health transition where non-communicable diseases (NCD) are exceeding communicable diseases. Despite NCDs accounting for roughly 60-85% of deaths in the region, many developing Southeast Asian countries are beginning to address the impacts of a physically inactive lifestyle for the first time. Our study aims to bridge this gap by objectively measuring physical activity in rural Lao PDR to reveal the association among physical activity, activity space, and seasonal variation 

The most common method to operationalize activity space is the standard deviation ellipse (SDE) that measures the directional distribution of a series of GPS points or the “densest” areas where most of the individual mobility occurs. The SDE is usually centered at an individual’s home and extended two standard deviations to cover 95% of the observed activity locations. This study uses an SDE to represent the participant’s activity space .

Our study is one of the first to objectively measure activity space and physical activity to assess the impact of farming seasons in rural Southeast Asia. Physical activity levels are strongly impacted by whether residents farm or not in the region. Integrating GPS tracking and accelerometer data to depict an activity space where individuals travel and how much time they spend on different daily activities could allow for advances in assessing the health risk factors of both communicable and non-communicable diseases. Understanding daily travel activities in this way may contribute to effective intervention programs needed to create healthy living environments in Southeast Asia.