Finding the standard unit_concept_id for kcal/hr*kg

Vocabulary Users
1

Hello,
I am a student and new to the OHDSI community. I hope someone can help me with my problem:

I have a dataset where “physical effort” (unfortunately, the term itself is not well-defined, but you can think of it as exertion or physical activity) was measured. The unit is kcal/(hr·kg). I am struggling to find an appropriate unit_concept_id (standard) for kcal/(hr·kg). In Athena, I only found kcal/kg or kcal/hr.

Since I do not know the weight (kg), converting the data to another unit is not possible.

What should I do? Do you have any suggestions? Is there a standard unit_concept_id that I might have missed?

I would greatly appreciate your help!

Thank you all in advance!

P.S.: I hope I posted my question correctly!

2

Hi!

Do you consider mapping to [MET]? According to many sources, 1 MET ≈ 1 kcal/(kg·hr).

3

Hi,
thank you for your quick response and your interesting input!
I just checked and it seems that MET is not well-defined and too ambigous (there are different definitions).
I was hoping for a SI-defined unit. Do you know if there is a standard unit_concept_id for kcal/(hr*kg) based on the SI standard?
Thank you for your time and support!

4

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According to both Google and numbat, the conversion to SI definition for “physical effort” would be measured in meters squared by seconds cubed, and m^2*s^-3 would probably not fit in Athena.

Given that MET is indeed ambiguously defined as a measurement unit in different sources, I would argue for inclusion of exactly kcal/(hr·kg) as a measure that is both conventional and unambiguous.