Tracking daily activities with ecological momentary assessment: A bibliometric analysis of current use in health Mapping daily activities with ecological momentary assessment

Abstract

Health research has shifted from a disease-centered approach towards emphasizing functioning and more specific lived health. Lived health, the actual performance of daily activities in one's environment, has nevertheless received limited attention, and its assessment remains methodologically challenging. Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA), a real-time method capturing behaviors, emotions, and context in natural settings, holds promise in this regard. Although EMA research is increasing, insight into its use for studying daily activities is still limited. To address this gap, this study systematically maps EMA applications across diverse health and disability populations to better understand lived health, defined as actual engagement in daily activities. A bibliometric analysis was conducted using a literature search on Web of Science with keywords related to EMA combined with daily activity terms, yielding 3,692 English-language articles. Publications were classified according to general characteristics, distribution of disability and health populations, actual engagement in daily activities following the person-environment-occupational model (PEO-model), and interaction analyses combining the last two analyses. The results show that mental disorders dominate the EMA research on daily activities, representing 75% of the dataset, which has significantly shaped the overall research landscape. Moreover, while personal factors are frequently highlighted, occupational and environmental dimensions remain underrepresented. These findings suggest that future EMA research should better integrate aspects of person, occupation, and environment, for instance by using tools such as geolocation and passive sensing to capture daily functioning more holistically. Expanding research beyond mental health and increasing secondary analyses will further strengthen the relevance and impact of EMA on health research.