Daily steps and all-cause mortality: a meta-analysis of 15 international cohorts

Although 10 000 steps per day is widely promoted to have health benefits, there is little evidence to support this recommendation. We aimed to determine the association between number of steps per day and stepping rate with all-cause mortality.

In this meta-analysis, we identified studies investigating the effect of daily step count on all-cause mortality in adults (aged ≥18 years), via a previously published systematic review and expert knowledge of the field. We asked participating study investigators to process their participant-level data following a standardised protocol. The primary outcome was all-cause mortality collected from death certificates and country registries. We analysed the dose-response association of steps per day and stepping rate with all-cause mortality. We did Cox proportional hazards regression analyses using study-specific quartiles of steps per day and calculated hazard ratios (HRs) with inverse-variance weighted random effects models.