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June 28, 2024
By Grant Clark
We all know the ooze of endorphins that can come from listening to a rousing piece of music or watching a gripping love story unfold on screen. It’s the same experience we have simply letting our bodies move along to a beat or allowing our imaginations carry a paintbrush across a canvas.
It can leave us inspired, uplifted and basically, feeling good – possibly changing our mood, our outlook and sense of wellbeing in the process.
Extensive research has been conducted over the past 25 years into the effect art has on health and well-being. But this area has fast been gaining interest and more recent initiatives now present further evidence for what many have known and experienced: that participating in arts activities has concrete health benefits for people, individually and collectively.
One of these initiatives is the Lancet Global Series, a groundbreaking new research series convened by the Jameel Arts & Health Lab in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO) in response to the growing interest in the demonstrated benefits of the arts in individual and population health, especially in the wake of the pandemic.
Bringing together 56 leading researchers and artists from institutions around the world, the series will present new and existing research, and offer recommendations for the integration of the arts into health-promotion programmes, and for the treatment and management of non-communicable diseases, which are responsible for most of the world’s premature death. It will offer recommendations to improve global policy guidance on topics such as scaling up promising interventions through social prescribing and intersectoral collaboration between the arts, health, education, and social care sectors.
"For too long we have seen Science and the Arts as separate endeavors. But these silos were not always so. Through much of human history, the creative interface of different disciplines has been a catalyst for both innovation and healing. "- Sir Jeremy Farrar, WHO Chief Scientist
Activities that show the contribution arts may have in promoting good health, preventing illness and treating acute and chronic diseases range from dance programmes for people with Parkinson’s Disease, music therapy for pain management, and drama therapy to support social-emotional development, among many others. Other programmes like CAN member, Carnegie Hall’s Wellbeing Concerts series, combine musical performances with elements of self-care in an immersive, nurturing space in which audiences and performers share in the soul-nourishing benefits of music, create shared experiences and explore tools for wellbeing that last long after the performance.
Arts-based and cultural activities provide an interdisciplinarity, accessibility and personal approach that can have significant health benefits.
"For too long we have seen Science and the Arts as separate endeavors,” said Sir Jeremy Farrar, Chief Scientist at the WHO, at the launch of the collaboration last September. “But these silos were not always so. Through much of human history, the creative interface of different disciplines has been a catalyst for both innovation and healing.”
A landmark 2019 WHO report found that art plays a “major role” in the prevention of illness across lifespan and that “the arts provide cost-effective interventions for complex health challenges that may not have current health-care solutions, while alleviating pressures on limited health resources”.
In March, authors collaborating on the five-part Lancet Global Special series gathered at Creative Brain Week in Dublin, Ireland, for a discussion exploring emerging outcomes of the research. The session, titled Collaboration and Connection, included a presentation by artist and CAN Senior Artistic Advisor, Yazmany Arboleda, of a curated photo-essay consisting of 20 photographs, that include images provided by CAN members, that convey diverse examples of how the arts have been used in health promotion and to support recovery.
Policy Briefs to guide decision-makers
Providing evidence of the positive health benefits the arts can deliver is one half of the battle. The other is having it impact on public policy that leads to health programmes aimed at improving health outcomes for people. The Jameel Arts & Health Lab/WHO collaboration is now developing a series of policy briefs to articulate ways in which the field of arts and health can address key areas of concern to decision-makers. It will draw out specific intersections between the arts and health field and priority policy areas, through collaboration with experts in selected topics, using mixed methods that combine evidence syntheses with case studies. The briefs will be aimed at the health sector, while also seeking to make connections to the different sectors involved in each issue (eg. Culture, environment, climate change, migration, etc).
One of these briefs is intended to better understand the intersection of sustainability, climate change, the arts, and health. The initiative is calling for artists, practitioners, healthcare, and cultural workers worldwide to share relevant resources and examples of artistic projects to be included in the research.
CultureForHealth Report
There are other important research initiatives breaking ground in this high-interest area. As part of its pioneering CultureForHealth project, CAN member, Culture Action Europe (CAE), released an extensive report that explored Culture’s contribution to health and wellbeing, presenting evidence and policy recommendations for Europe.
The recommendations included that the European Union (EU) finance training and conferences to draw awareness to the kinds of projects that can be implemented and to boost investment in prevention and health promotion.
The report also recommended that culture-based social prescribing be promoted across the EU, as well as the addition of dedicated provisions in policy documents. Social prescribing is a means of connecting patients to a range of non-clinical services in the community to improve their health and well-being. The most critical step, however, is to get decisionmakers and stakeholders to have these discussions locally, in EU member states.
The CultureForHealth project has also mapped initiatives on culture, well-being and health across the EU and other countries. This directory includes relevant policies, projects and programmes carried out at local, regional, national, European and international level. It serves as a tool for decision makers, practitioners and researchers interested in leveraging arts for publich health and wellbeing.
One of the key themes through which CAN pursues its mission to leverage the transformative power of arts for social change is Arts for Wellbeing. With these initiatives – along with the contributions of CAN members like CAE, Yazmany Arboleda and other changemakers in the network – we are excited and encouraged by the prospects of seeing arts fully integrated into healthcare on a level not seen before.