Our program.
Funded by Health and Wellbeing Queensland and Wellbeing SA, the 10,000 Steps program is facilitated by the team at CQUniversity’s Physical Activity Research Group who coordinate the dissemination of the program. The team supports individuals, workplaces and communities around Queensland, South Australia and beyond to incorporate more movement into their daily activity through the use of the programs website 10000steps.org.au, mobile app and resources.
The 10,000 Steps program provides a platform for individuals to track steps and activity, view step stats overtime, connect with friends, join monthly Challenges and participate in team Tournaments. The website (redeveloped in 2017) has integration with Fitbit, Garmin and Google Fit and the mobile application is available on iOS and Android devices (with Apple Health integration available on iOS).
While also supporting individuals in their personal behaviour change, the program has additional features and resources for Coordinators which support the promotion of physical activity in workplaces and within the community. Workplace Coordinators can run team tournaments, encourage staff to track their steps and join monthly Challenges as well as access resources to promote physical activity (including our Active Workplaces Guide). Community Coordinators can access walkway signage and dog walking strategy resources, run community team Tournaments and Health Challenges, as well as access free resources to promote physical activity. Queensland based Coordinators are able to access free printed resources to further encourage active choices.
Our mission.
We know that significant health and well-being benefits can be made simply by moving more every day. The 10,000 Steps program's purpose is to encourage Australians to move more throughout their daily lives by making active choices and tracking activity. The use of activity trackers are essential to the program as a tool to monitor movement and motivate each individual to find more ways to add to their daily step count. Every step and minute of activity counts!
Our team.
Our small (but dedicated!) team are based out of CQUniversity - Rockhampton, Cairns, Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast. The 10,000 Steps Program is a part of the Appleton Institute Physical Activity Research Group. The project is overseen by Corneel Vandelanotte, Professorial Research Fellow, Physical Activity Research Group leader at the Appleton Institute, CQUniversity Australia. Our team, Corneel Vandelanotte (Project Leader), Anetta Van Itallie (Project Manager), Nick lo (Website Developer), Cindy Hooker (Project Officer), Felix Parker (Support Officer) and Nina Gill (Project Officer). Not pictured are our Project Officers Rebecca Williams, Melissa Erbacher and Georgia Spanner. Each of our team members are health promotion professionals with minimum Bachelor qualifications, with range of expertise and experience in research and health promotion.
Our beginning.
10,000 Steps was Australia’s first ‘whole of community’ health promotion physical activity project funded by Queensland Health. In 2001, the Rockhampton region was chosen for a two year trial of the project as the residents showed 'typical' levels of inactivity. During these two years, the 10,000 Steps Rockhampton Project was a collaboration between CQUniversity, the University of Queensland, Queensland University of Technology, Sports Medicine Australia, and the National Heart Foundation.
The initial 10,000 Steps Rockhampton Project was an exemplary model of an effective multi-strategy, multi-sector physical activity project. As a result of the success in Rockhampton, QLD Health has continued to fund the ongoing delivery of the program as a sustainable state wide and beyond initiative. 10,000 Steps is committed to ongoing research, development, distribution and support of new and existing support materials to 10,000 Steps Coordinators, all with web-based support.
Our Achievements.
The 10,000 Steps program began in 2001 and has now celebrated 20 years! As at March 2023 the 10,000 program had:
- 600,000+ members registered
- 18,988 organisations registered from all sizes and a range of industries
- 345+ billion steps logged on the 10,000 Steps applications
- 9.8 million* website sessions and 59.1 million* page views
- 141,024 downloads of the 10,000 Steps mobile app
- 11,518 Tournaments started
- 68,524 teams comprised of 432,000+ individuals
- 160+ million Tournament steps logged
For more information, take a look at our Program Achievements.
Source: *uptake (2011-2022)
Satisfaction with the 10,000 Steps Program
Recently 10,000 Steps asked our users their thoughts on the program.
- 93.5% of participants are satisfied with the 10,000 Steps Program
- 91.5% of participants would recommend 10,0000 Steps to friends, family and/or workmates
- 93% of Coordinators would recommend 10,000 Steps to other Organisations
- 88.5% of Coordinators are satisfied with the level of support from the 10,000 Steps Program Team