CoppaFeel! Impact Report 2025
In 2025, CoppaFeel! helped increase the number of 18-24s checking their chests. Find out how we educated, encouraged and empowered a generation.
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A message from our CEO:
“It’s always so rewarding to look back across the year and reflect on what we’ve been able to achieve as a community. Whilst we are so proud that we are reaching more people than ever before, what matters most isn’t just numbers. It’s the people, conversations and moments that have the power to change lives.
2025 was a year of progress for CoppaFeel! and one that drove real momentum in delivering our strategy. More people are not only hearing our message but acting on it and as that individual action grows so too does our focus on the systems around it. We have and will continue to push for change, working to ensure that when someone seeks help, they are listened to, taken seriously and able to access support without delay.
Thank you for being part of this journey with us, and for helping us ensure that early diagnosis for all becomes the norm, not the exception.”
Natalie Haskell, CoppaFeel! Chief Executive Officer
The issue
Around 2,500 women are diagnosed with breast cancer under the age of 40 every year in the UK. It remains the leading cause of cancer death in women under 50, and since 2001, cases in people aged 25–29 have increased by 75%.
In the UK, there is no routine breast screening for young people. As a result younger people are often diagnosed later. For Black and South Asian communities, or those living in the most deprived areas, their outcomes can be worse.
Education is still needed to challenge the perception that breast cancer only affects older people, which currently leads to a lack of risk awareness and many young people still being dismissed by healthcare professionals.
The needs
Our research shows that young people have a low awareness of signs and symptoms, their risk of breast cancer and motivation to check themselves regularly:
- 54% of 18-24 year olds are unaware that a nipple rash could be sign of breast cancer
- Only 33% of 18-24 year olds check their chests at least monthly
- 48% of 18-24 year olds are not very confident they would notice a change in their chest
- The lack of perceived relevancy is the biggest barrier to checking their chest for 18-24 year olds at 36%.
Our aims
Our short term aims are to:
- Increase awareness of breast cancer as a risk, signs and symptoms along with knowledge of what to do if you notice a change in your chest.
- Increase motivation to check your chest through seeing it as helpful and easy to do.
- Engage healthcare professionals so they are aware of young people’s risks and information to support them.
Our medium term aims are to:
- Support and increase regular chest checking behaviours, through building confidence and knowledge on how to do it.
- Increase confidence to notice a change in your chest and take action by visiting your GP.
- Support healthcare professionals to encourage self-checking and take appropriate action to refer young people who present with concerns.
Our long term aims are to:
- Establish a cultural shift among young people where monthly chest checking becomes a regular behaviour, driven by their peers who have a shared knowledge that this could affect them.
- Ensure that breast concerns in young people are found at the earliest possible stage, leading to a faster diagnosis and a significant reduction in avoidable delays.
- Transform the healthcare landscape so that young people have fair access to age-appropriate services and are no longer met with dismissal of their concerns.
Ultimately, we want to see these outcomes drive more breast cancer cases in young people diagnosed early at stage 1 and 2, therefore increasing survival rates.
Our activities
Our marketing activity is dedicated to raising awareness of breast cancer and encouraging young people to be familiar with their bodies. We do this through national campaigns, digital youth engagement, collaborations with content creators and running awareness events.
Our services are focused on creating health information and resources that help to educate and support our audiences, whether that is young people, healthcare professionals or policy makers. We also run specific engagement activities to reach and support healthcare professionals to have important conversations with their patients. We run regional activities such as school roadshows and volunteer programmes to raise awareness and deliver education in local communities.
Our engagement approach makes sure we keep young people at the heart of everything we do. Ensuring we uphold our commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion and create change at a systemic level through our policy and influencing agenda.
In 2025, we...
Educated
Through our annual campaign and new content creators approach
Strategic Objective: raise awareness, understanding and relevance of breast cancer so all 18-24 year olds know how to check and do it regularly.
What we did
We developed our new annual campaign Feelings, designed to challenge emotional barriers to chest checking and make the behaviour feel relevant, normal and achievable for young people. This was rolled out in two bursts across out-of-home (OOH), connected TV (CTV), audio (including radio and podcasts) and social media. The campaign strapline, “Whatever you feel, feel your chest”, reframed chest checking as an act of self-care that fits naturally into young people’s emotional lives. At the heart of the campaign were the real experiences of three young women, Amber, Robyn and Dhvani. Throughout the year we worked with 7 content creators to share their own emotional experiences and the importance of chest checking.
What we achieved
The campaign achieved significant reach, with a total of 4.63 million young people exposed (94% of 18-24s) an average of 13 times across channels. The creator-led content reached a further 2.15 million young people in the first phase and 2.81 million young people in the second phase. Prior to seeing the campaign, only 40% of young people believed there was a chance they could get breast cancer in their lifetime. After exposure, perceived relevance increased significantly to 75%. In addition, two in five reported that they had already checked their chest as a direct result of seeing the campaign.
“I found the ad easy to connect with, It shared real emotions not only facts. It helped me think about my own body differently.”![]()
"I think this campaign will stick with a lot of girls. It was so relatable, everything felt close to home.”![]()
Encouraged
Through new health Information and accessible resources
Strategic Objective: Drive confidence in 18-24 year olds noticing a change in their chest and advocating for their health by visiting their GP if they are worried about a sign of breast cancer
What we did
By developing our health information topics, we’ve empowered more young people to visit their GP without hesitation if something doesn’t feel right. We did this through co-creating new resources specifically around breast pain. This is a common issue for young people, so we simplified the information and worked with Young Collaborators and colleagues at East Midland Breast Pain Clinic to create reassuring resources to help young people present to their GP with clarity rather than fear. In addition we worked hard to improve the accessibility of our health information, expanding our library to include more resources in British Sign Language (BSL), Easy read resources, translating our checking leaflet in Spanish, maintaining our PIF Tick accreditation and working closely with communities such as the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Community to co-create bespoke resources, addressing specific cultural needs and sensitivities.
What we achieved
Our new information and youth-led breast pain explainer videos have been accessed by over 1,000 people since their launch in March 2025 with the suite of videos being viewed over 650 times. This information educates 18-24 year olds on breast pain and the new breast pain clinics being rolled out.
Our easy-read “Know Your Body” resources for people with a learning disability, created in collaboration with Thera Trust, were made available in print form with 275 packs being sent from August to December to key professionals, enabling them to share accessible breast awareness guidance with the people they support.
Our co-created leaflet with the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Community and partners, Lev Chaim, North East London Cancer Alliance, Charedi Women’s Health Alliance and Acheinu Cancer Support, saw 4,400 copies distributed in key locations across Manchester and North East London. These resources support important conversations around chest checking and visiting your GP with concerns in a culturally sensitive way.
Empowered
Through supporting and training healthcare professionals
What we did
We supported more healthcare professionals than ever before, providing access to breast cancer information, resources and education. In 2025, we continued to see increasing engagement of our training module, especially on the NHS e-learning for health platform. We also increased our attendance at healthcare professional conferences and delivered 18 breast awareness webinars, reaching over 400 people. We also launched a healthcare professional hub on our website, to better support them with educating and treating young patients.
What we achieved
Our healthcare hub hit 12,951 active users from October 2025 to January 2026, showing a significant increase in visits to the page compared with the same period last year. 84% of healthcare professionals surveyed, said they were more likely to encourage self-checking after using our resources. A highlight of the year was also successfully working with Ardens to include a link to our “how to check” page on cervical screening templates via EMIS and SystmOne, to support clear and easy signposting for healthcare professionals. These two major NHS electronic patient record systems are used by around 98% of GP practices in England.
2025 in numbers
- We reached around 278,000 people with our services and engagement activities.
- Our Feelings Campaign reached 4.63 million young people (94% of 18-24s) with an average of 13 times across channels.
- We signed up another 11,296 people to our SMS reminder service
- We reached a running total of up to 4,430 healthcare professionals signed up to our healthcare mailing list
- We had around 144,000 physical material packs and resources ordered including 5,648 orders for our translated leaflets
- Our digital resources were downloaded/accessed over 2,000 times, this includes 264 downloads of our translated resources.
- We translated our checking resources into seven different languages
- Our volunteer programmes reached over 40,000 people throughout the year
- We delivered over 860 events across our workstreams including 18 healthcare webinars and over 800 talks and stalls in communities by our volunteer community.
- 11,296 people signed up for our text reminder service and we sent out 1,734,267 text messages
- Our Self Check-Out had over 62,000 new users
- The CoppaFeel! Mobile activity facilitated more than 3,250 meaningful conversations with young people and distributed over 3,500 chest-checking information packs.
Our 2025-2027 strategy
The difference we made
Our evaluation shows that:
- Regular chest checking (monthly or weekly) jumped from 16% to 79% after engaging with CoppaFeel! services.
- Overall we saw approximately a 5x improvement in regular checking behaviour for those who had engaged with our services and communications across all age groups.
Source: Two waves of the CoppaFeel! annual beneficiary survey; n=435
For 18-24s:
- 66% of 18-24 year olds who had never checked their chests before are now checking weekly or monthly.
For our broader audience:
- 95% agree that monthly checking helps to spot signs and symptoms of breast cancer early
- 89% agree that CoppaFeel! helps them to remember to check their chest once a month
- 94% strongly agree that CoppaFeel! helps them know what changes to check for
- 87% are motivated to check their chest monthly.
- 95% would speak to a GP or other HCP if they noticed a change. Of those who mentioned they noticed an unusual change, 75% said they consulted a GP (based on 79 respondents who said they had noticed an unusual change)
- 97% would recommend CoppaFeel! to other young people
- Our Feelings Campaign increased perceived relevance of breast cancer from 40% to 75%.
- 94% of young people who engaged with us at CoppaFeel! Mobile said that, following their interaction, they felt breast cancer was something that could affect them.
For healthcare professionals:
- 92% agree that monthly self checking is a useful tool for young people.
- 92% feel confident advising young people on self checking
- 72% more likely to refer young people to breast clinics
- 69% more likely to offer urgent appointments to young people who present with unusual chest changes.
- 84% more likely to encourage self-checking after using our resources
- 67% report NO barriers to referring young people
- 97% would recommend CoppaFeel! to other healthcare professionals
Source: two waved of the HCP survey; n=162
“CoppaFeel has taught me the importance of checking my chest and has given me confidence in understanding and owning my body. If something isn’t right, I will now feel more confident going to the doctors and seeking help”![]()
The big picture
This year, we’ve seen some important shifts in how young people are showing up and checking their chests in the UK. A big hurdle for 18-24s is feeling like breast cancer simply “isn’t relevant” to them (36% feel this way). But despite that, the data shows a massive 68% of 18-24s have checked themselves, and 33% are doing it at least monthly, up from 2024.
That said, there is still more work to do. As more young people start checking, confidence in knowing exactly what’s “normal” has dipped slightly from 63% to 59%. This makes sense with the more you check, the more questions you might have. We’re also seeing a dip in people recognising specific symptoms, especially things like changes to the nipple. While 70% of you know how to check (remaining stable from 2024) we want to make sure you know exactly what to be aware of when it comes to the signs of breast cancer. Our research shows those aged 22-24 are already leading the way with a boost in confidence, and the challenge is to make sure everyone feels just as empowered to spot a change and take action as we head into 2026.*
*Figures from Annual CoppaTrack Survey with 7*Stars, November 2025
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