NHS Active 10 app encourages increase in walking activity

The NHS Active 10 walking app, which has been promoted through English public health campaigns, appears to be effective in enabling changes in walking levels, despite use falling off after several months, a new study suggests.

Research from the University of Cambridge found that use of the free NHS Active 10 app led to rapid and sustained increases in physical activity. On the first day of using the app, users recorded a 73 per cent average increase in brisk walking.

Although levels of activity declined over time, users continued to walk more than they did before downloading the app.

The findings, published in npj Digital Medicine, suggest that Active 10 may be an effective tool for promoting walking-based activity, particularly if app use is sustained.

Can the app promote more walking?

In England, over a third of adults do not reach the recommended 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity activity, and one quarter do less than 30 minutes per week, leading to an increase in poor health and often premature death.

Designed to promote behavioural changes and increase physical activity levels, Active 10 has been downloaded over 1.5 million times since its launch in 2017.

Despite interest in using activity tracking apps in primary care, evidence supporting their effectiveness remains limited.

The researchers collected anonymised walking data from 308,028 users of the Active 10 app, collected by the Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC) between July 2021 and January 2024.

Having downloaded the app, users allowed access to their previous walking behaviour and patterns. To be included in the study, users were required to have at least five days of pre-download activity data and 28 days of post-download data.

Age and sex data were not available for all participants in the study. Among those who did provide information, over three-quarters of the users were female, and the average age of the users was 48.3 years (±19.8 years).

Initial uptake of the app was high, with 308,028 people using the app and recording at least one day of activity during the study period. Three-quarters of the people who downloaded the app were still using it after two weeks. However, this declined to 35 per cent after 6 months, 21 per cent after 12 months, and six per cent of those who engaged with the app were still using it after 24 months.

On the day users downloaded the app, their brisk walking increased by nine minutes per day (a 73 per cent increase from baseline), and non-brisk walking increased by 2.6 minutes per day (a nine per cent increase).

Less walking seen over time

Over time, the amount of brisk walking undertaken by users declined, falling on average 0.15 minutes per day for each month that passed. The amount of non-brisk walking also fell, by 0.06 minutes per day for each month that passed.

Dharani Yerrakalva, an academic general practitioner at the University of Cambridge, said: ‘Even though activity levels fell over time, people still using the app after more than two years were doing more physical activity than before they started using it.’

For those who continued using the app, walking levels were maintained above pre-intervention levels at 30 months. At the end of 30 months, users were still walking an average of 4.5 minutes more per day briskly and 0.8 minutes per day more non-briskly than before they began using the app.

Previous research from the University of Cambridge suggests that just 11 minutes a day of brisk walking could prevent one in ten premature deaths. This implies that, at the population level, there would be significant health benefits from even modest increases in activity encouraged by the app.

Senior author Professor Simon Griffin, from the Department of Public Health and Primary Care and the Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge, added: ‘Active 10 appears to have been a success, in that it encouraged 200,000 people to increase their levels of moderate physical activity.

‘We should now consider whether apps such as this can be integrated into NHS practice, for example, providing data to GPs so they can monitor their patients’ progress and provide tailored advice, to help us move towards a more personalised approach to medicine.’

The free NHS Active 10 app records a user’s walking activity, tracks steps, helps set goals, and gives people tips to boost activity.

The NHS recommends at least 150 minutes of moderate physical activity a week, or around 20 to 30 minutes a day.