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Abstract:
1. Motivation, specific objective: The wide-reaching effects of light on human health and wellbeing have been highlighted by a variety of basic laboratory findings. However, to date there is no consensus on how light characteristics in such studies are reported. The goal of this project was to develop a specific reporting checklist and guidelines for light characteristics in laboratory-based investigations on the impact of light on non-visual physiology. 2. Methods: We conducted a four-step Delphi process involving international researchers to establish consensus on the importance of concepts and quantities that can be used to describe experimental light interventions as well as the best practices on the format and specification of these items. This process involved three questionnaire-based feedback rounds and one face-to-face group discussion. Efforts were made to invite a group of participants that is representative with respect to gender, geographical location, and seniority. The project was registered on the EQUATOR Network. 3. Results: The resulting guidelines and checklist contain a variety of reporting items, spanning protocol- level characteristics (description of experimental setting, timeline of experiment, pre- laboratory sleep-wake/rest-activity behaviour, pre-laboratory light exposure, immediate prior light exposure), measurement-level characteristics (measurement plane, viewpoint and location, type, make and manufacturer of the measurement instrument, calibration status of the instrument), participant-level characteristics (ocular health, pupil size, relative time), light source types (type, make and manufacturer of the light source, use of wearable filtering apparatus), light-level characteristics (illuminance/luminance, spectral irradiance/radiance distribution, α-opic irradiance and/or radiance, α-opic equivalent daylight illuminance and/or luminance), colour characteristics (peak wavelength and bandwidth, colour appearance quantities, colour rendering metrics), and temporal and spatial characteristics (location of stimulus and viewing distance, temporal pattern, relative or absolute size of the stimulus). The checklist is available as a fillable PDF. 4. Conclusions: We present the first international consensus checklist and guidelines for reporting light level characteristics in intervention studies. The checklist and guidelines will facilitate the transparent and reproducible reporting of interventions. We are currently seeking endorsement from a range of scientific societies.
