In April 2024, we launched our ‘Bridging the Gap’ report, focusing on understanding how to better support people with living with long term conditions to become more physically active. The report includes insights from individuals with lived experiences and those who support them, such as healthcare professionals, carers, and sports and physical activity professionals and more!
To design effective support for people with long term conditions to manage their mental and physical health, we need to meet them where they are and make activity feel meaningful and achievable.
This report highlights the importance of physical activity, lived experience motivators and barriers, trusted sources of information, the need for practical guidance to support professionals, and the importance of charity involvement in We Are Undefeatable. From this research, we have identified the next steps for We Are Undefeatable in response to the insights gathered.
A key insight is that there is a potential ‘empathy gap’: while individuals with long-term conditions cite pain and low energy as the main barriers to being active, professional audiences (sport, government, family, carers etc) often focus on factors like cost and motivation.
Bridging the Gap: Infographic and Executive Summary
An overview of key findings from the full 'Bridging the Gap' report alongside handy visual graphics.
How you can utilise the insights in your work
There is a lot in this report for us to take forward as we design the next phase of the We Are Undefeatable campaign. But the campaign, is only part of the solution. We need all professionals, organisations, local and national, across all sectors to play a part in encouraging and enabling people with long-term conditions to move more. This is why the Richmond Group of Charities has published Millions more moving - a report that identifies how national policymakers can tackle inactivity by supporting people with long term conditions to move more.
To help you get the information you need from the 'Bridging the Gap' report, we have created a We Are Undefeatable dashboard with all the insights and data from the report. This dashboard gives you the opportunity to dive deeper and filter aspects of the data for further interpretation. It is available to any organisation or individual interested in these insights. Please review the guidance on the welcome page to support you with using the dashboard.
We want to encourage those who support people living with long term health conditions to read and share this report and the summary infographic with your colleagues and networks, and consider how the insights may apply to your work and communications.
If you are interested in finding out more based on your organisational or professional priorities, please get in touch with us at weareundefeatable@ageuk.org.uk.
Bridging the Gap: Full Report
The 'Bridging the Gap’ report focuses on understanding how to better support people with living with long-term conditions to become more physically active, to help shape the future of We Are Undefeatable.