Public health research has witnessed a rapid development in the use of location, environmental, behavioral, and biophysical sensors that provide high-resolution objective time-stamped data. These methods open a new space-time perspective that considers the full dynamic of residential and nonresidential exposures and related momentary behaviors and health states, investigates complex time sequences, and explores the interplay among individual, environmental, and situational predictors. The aim of this sensor-based environmental research is to generate knowledge on how to create a variety of places and situations that provide optimal environments for healthy living for each individual profile.

A review in Ann Rev Public Health provides an overview of this researh field.