Over the past two decades, there has been a major increase in research into the effects of the arts on health and well-being, alongside developments in practice and policy activities in different countries across the WHO European Region and further afield. This report synthesizes the global evidence on the role of the arts in improving health and well-being, with a specific focus on the WHO European Region. Results from over 3000 studies identified a major role for the arts in the prevention of ill health, promotion of health, and management and treatment of illness across the lifespan. The reviewed evidence included study designs such as uncontrolled pilot studies, case studies, small-scale cross-sectional surveys, nationally representative longitudinal cohort studies, community-wide ethnographies and randomized controlled trials from diverse disciplines. The beneficial impact of the arts could be furthered through acknowledging and acting on the growing evidence base; promoting arts engagement at the individual, local and national levels; and supporting cross-sectoral collaboration.
Health/Medical
Arts Education and Social-Emotional Learning Outcomes Among K-12 Students
In Arts Education and Social-Emotional Learning Outcomes Among K-12 Students: Developing A Theory of Action, the authors describe how arts learning experiences have the potential to promote the development of socialemotional competencies and suggest that these developmental processes can be replicable across subject areas.
Evidence suggests that practices traditionally found in arts education can play a critical role in developing college- and career-ready skills, such as innovation and collaboration. Participation in arts education processes and practices can translate into the development of both artistic and social-emotional competencies, including self-management, self-discipline, interpersonal skills, and self-expression, that extend beyond arts.
Calm and collected: Museums and galleries: the U.K.’s untapped wellbeing resource?
The research that informs this report shows that we are anxious about our workload, our financial situations, health issues and social isolation, to name a few – and we struggle to find enough time to pursue activities that could
contribute to our wellbeing, such as visiting museums and galleries.
The results of two stages f research – a UK-wide representative survey, and
a qualitative social study in which participants were encouraged to visit museums and galleries once a week with a National Art Pass and keep a diary of their activities – suggest that engaging with the nation’s art collections more frequently can help improve our wellbeing. It is an
activity that can bring people together, and over time it can become part of an approach to life that people may find healthier and more balanced.
In the survey, those who say they regularly visit museums and galleries as part of their overall lifestyle choices tend to feel much more satisfied with
their lives, and in the social study, those who visit at least once a week report a range of benefits, from learning new things to finding space
to reflect.
Yet only 6% of us regularly take advantage of our national art collections.
While 51% of those surveyed say they would like to visit
museums and galleries more regularly – and 63% say they
have at some point visited specifically to ‘de-stress’ – only
6% of us actually visit at least once a month.
Overall, both the quantitative survey and the qualitative
social study suggest that museums and galleries are a
significant untapped resource at our disposal that can help
us achieve a greater sense of wellbeing when we take time
out for ourselves.
The Integration of the Humanities and Arts with Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Higher Education
In the United States, broad study in an array of different disciplines -arts, humanities, science, mathematics, engineering- as well as an in-depth study within a special area of interest, have been defining characteristics of a higher education. But over time, in-depth study in a major discipline has come to dominate the curricula at many institutions. This evolution of the curriculum has been driven, in part, by increasing specialization in the academic disciplines. There is little doubt that disciplinary specialization has helped produce many of the achievement of the past century. Researchers in all academic disciplines have been able to delve more deeply into their areas of expertise, grappling with ever more specialized and fundamental problems.
Creative and Cultural Activities and Wellbeing in Later Life
What makes later life worth living? That is one of the questions that Age UK has been attempting to answer through our recent research on wellbeing.
We used a rich data source (the Understanding Society Survey), combined with state-of-the-art statistical techniques, to construct Age UK’s Index of
Wellbeing in Later Life.
Unsurprisingly, the Index showed that people with good social networks, good health and good financial resources were more likely to have
high levels of wellbeing. However, the strongest message from the research was the importance of maintaining meaningful engagement with the world
around you in later life – whether this is through social, creative or physical activity, work, or belonging to some form of community group. Taken together, these types of participation contribute more than a fifth of wellbeing, as defined in our Index. Even more striking was our finding that creative and cultural participation was the single factor that contributed
the most out of all 40 of the factors we found to significantly contribute to wellbeing.
Follow-up qualitative research that we carried out showed that, even for people with very low wellbeing overall, having something creative to do really helps.
This report delves further into our findings around creative and cultural participation – what it is, who does what, and how it differs depending on people’s overall level of wellbeing. We include examples of creative and cultural activities for older people and conclude with recommendations for practitioners and policymakers.
Creative Forces Clinical Research: A Strategic Framework and Five-Year Agenda (2018-2022)
In Creative Forces Clinical Research: A Strategic Framework and Five Year Agenda, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) lays out its plans for adding a research component to its military healing arts partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense and state arts agencies. The NEA developed the new research agenda in response to the clinical needs of military service members and veterans coping with traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress. Forthcoming research will focus on targeted deployment of arts therapies interventions, arts therapies in integrated care and cotreatment, and measurement of patient characteristics vis-à-vis treatment variables and outcomes. This work will add to the collection of research and scholarly manuscripts already produced or being developed by the Creative Forces clinical team and its research collaborators.
