Over 70 000 exercise and wellness loggings on HeiaHeia during the year of 2020

The wellness app HeiaHeia got the citizens of Kemi moving and thinking about their health during its first year. Altogether the app was used over 167 000 times and well over 48 000 exercise entries and over 25 000 wellness acts were logged by the citizens of Kemi. Almost 18 000 friend connections were made and people cheered for their friends approximately 129 000 times.

The app provides programmes of different levels for people to increase their physical and mental health, to increase the quality of sleep and well-being in their everyday life. Most of the exercises in these programmes can be done at home or even at the workplace during the day with no equipment needed.

In Kemi the app has successfully managed to activate all kinds of people, including those who have not wanted to participate in group exercise classes or use traditional sports locations.

At the end of 2020 there were 1953 users under the Kemi city HeiaHeia licence. Mostly the app was used by school and city employee communities. The community made for all Kemi citizens was also popular with 478 users.

The most popular activities on HeiaHeia during 2020 were walking, cycling, mobility exercises, running and yoga.

The use of HeiaHeia increased dramatically during the distance school period in the Spring of 2020 when especially the Hepola and Syväkangas schools actively used the app as a platform for PE classes. The most active week on HeiaHeia was the European Week of Sport at the end of September when all comprehensive schools were invited to participate in the #BeActive wellness campaign funded by Erasmus+Sport programme. During this week the app was used over 19 000 times.

Last year’s most widescaled campaign was organized in cooperation with local labor unions and it was targeted to the employees of the city of Kemi. The campaign was also supported by Mehiläinen Occupational Health Services which provided its material on working place ergonomics to the city employees. Local businesses also had campaign offers for the employees. During the six-week Hyvinvointia Kaamokseen campaign (“Wellness among the Polar Night”) about 150 employees logged over 3000 hours of exercise and cheered for others for over 46 000 times.

The HeiaHeia app can be used individually but it is perfectly suitable for coaching purposes as well. For example in Kemi, the city physical exercise services uses the app as a tool and other health professionals have started to use it as well. Kids and teenagers can already contact school nurses, curators and The school psychologists through HeiaHeia chat by joining a closed community using the code NUORTENTERVEYS.

HeiaHeia continues to be in use for the Kemi citizens in 2021. The open community for Kemi citizens can be joined using a code KEMI on HeiaHeia. All sports clubs and organizations and other non-commercial communities can have their own HeiaHeia communities under the HeiaHeia licence free of charge. This way they can, among other things, make use of the app’s coaching and community communication tools.

For more information, contact:
Olli Kelhä, admin user
olli.kelha@kemi.fi