Users of the NHS Active 10 app, designed to encourage people to become more active, immediately increased their amount of brisk and non-brisk walking upon using the app, according to researchers from the University of Cambridge.
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
Dharani Yerrakalva
In a study published today in npj Digital Medicine, the researchers found that while activity levels then slowly declined over time, even after 30 months those users who were still using the app were more active than they had been beforehand.
Lack of physical activity is linked to poor health, including higher rates of heart disease and stroke, type 2 diabetes, cancers, dementia, depression and early death. Almost 4 million premature deaths per year - and healthcare costs of US$27 billion - are attributable to physical inactivity.
In England, more than one in three (37%) adults do not reach the recommended 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity activity - which can include brisk walking - and around one in four (26%) adults does less than 30 minutes per week.
Recently, mobile health apps have grown in popularity, allowing users to track their physical activity, offering tailored feedback, goal setting opportunities and activity reminders throughout the day. One such app is NHS Active 10, launched in 2017 to increase brisk walking levels, as walking is the most common form of activity reported by English adults. The app has been downloaded over 1.5 million times since its introduction.
In the first formal evaluation of its effectiveness, researchers from the University of Cambridge examined anonymised data from more than 200,000 users of the app - those who used the app for at least a month - collected between July 2021 and January 2024. These users had agreed for their anonymised data to be collected and shared for research purposes.
Three quarters of those users who provided demographic information were women, and the average age of users was 51 years. One in three users (32%) was aged 60 years or over.
Following download, the app requested permission from users to access their historical walking data. This revealed that prior to using the app, individuals spent on average 12.3 minutes per day in brisk walking and 30.4 minutes per day in non-brisk walking.
On the first day the app was downloaded, users walked on average an additional 9.0 minutes per day briskly. Their non-brisk walking increased by 2.6 minutes per day.
Over time, the amount of brisk walking done 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.
Over a third of users (35%) were still using the app after six months and a fifth (21%) after a year. This is much higher than the average for health and fitness apps worldwide, where typically less than three in 100 users (2.8%) are still using the app after 30 days.
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.
First author Dr Dharani Yerrakalva, from the Department of Public Health and Primary Care 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.
"At the population level, other research has suggested that we would see significant health benefits from even modest increases in activity such as this. Previous work by colleagues at Cambridge suggests that just 11 minutes a day of brisk walking could prevent one in 10 premature deaths."
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, said: "Active 10 appears to have a 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."
Simon Willcock, aged 71, said: "I am a big fan of Active 10. Following a successful cardiac ablation in January 2023, I set out to get fit and start looking after my heart. Active 10 has enabled me to change my behaviour especially when walking my two dogs twice a day. I now consciously walk faster and rarely amble.
"I set myself a minimum of three Active 10's a day and usually manage four or five. My measured 'brisk minutes' recorded usually average 40 to 55% of my total walking. I have lost over a stone, feel fitter and are rarely out of breath when walking the Surrey Hills near where I live. Much cheaper than going to the gym!"
The research was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and Medical Research Council, with support from the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.
Reference
Yerrakalva, D et al. Evaluation of the NHS Active 10 Walking App Intervention through time-series analysis in 201,688 individuals. npj Digital Medicine; 6 Aug 2025; DOI: 10.1038/s41746-025-01785-x
