Young children's hand contact activities: An observational study via videotaping in primarily outdoor residential settings

Microlevel activity time series (MLATS) data were gathered on hand contact activities of 38 children (1-6 years old) by videotaping in primarily outdoor residential environments. The videotape recordings were then translated into text files using a specialized software called VirtualTimingDevice". Contact frequency (contacts/h), duration per contact (s/contact), and hourly contact duration (min/h) were summarized for outdoor hand contacts with 15 distinct object/surface categories ("Animal", "Body", "Clothes/Towels", "Fabric", "Floor", "Food", "Footwear", "Metal", "Non-dietary Water", "Paper/Wrapper", "Plastic", "Rock/Brick", "Toys", "Vegetation/Grass", and "Wood") and two aggregate object/surface categories ("Non-dietary objects/surfaces" and "Total objects/surfaces"). For outdoor both hand contacts with "Total objects/surfaces", contact frequencies ranged from 229.9 to 1517.7 contacts/h, median durations/contact ranged from <1 to 5 s, and hourly contact durations ranged from 42.6 to 102.2 m/h. The data were analyzed for significant differences in hand contact activities as a function of (1) age, (2) location, (3) gender, and (4) hand. Significant differences (P <= 0.05) were found for all four factors analyzed. Hourly contact durations with "Non-dietary objects/surfaces" and "Total objects/ surfaces" increased with age (P = 0.01, r(s) = 0.42 and P = 0.005, r(s) = 0.46, respectively), while contact frequencies and hourly contact durations with "Wood" decreased with age (P = 0.02, r(s) = -0.38 and P = 0.05, r(s) = -0.32, respectively). Location was found to affect contact frequencies and hourly contact durations with certain objects/surfaces. For example, contact frequencies and hourly contact durations with "Fabric" were higher indoors (P = 0.02 for both), while contact frequencies and hourly contact durations with "Vegetation/Grass" were higher outdoors (P = 0.02 and P = 0.04, respectively). Girls had longer hourly contact durations with "Footwear" (P = 0.02), "Non-dietary objects/surfaces" (P = 0.03), and "Total objects/ surfaces" (P = 0.01) than boys. The right hand had longer hourly contact durations with objects that are often manipulated with the hand (e.g., "Toys" (P = 0.0002)), while the left hand had longer hourly contact durations with passively touched objects/surfaces (e.g., "Clothes/Towels" (P = 0.003) and "Floor" (P=0.04)).