Publication type
Report
Author
Publication date
February 15, 2015
Summary:
A new report from Arts for Health reveals that engaging with the arts
and culture generally has a positive long-term effect on health and
wellbeing.The prevailing narrative in UK policy-making circles is that we lack evidence around how
engagement in the arts – as an audience member and/or practitioner – affects our physical and
psychological health over time. Between February and July 2014, research was conducted
which sought to address this perceived deficit in several ways.
In the first place, this research adopted an international perspective to locate and
critically analyse those English-language studies to have explored the association
between arts engagement and health. This gave rise to an evidence base, comprised
of fifteen studies, which collectively suggest that arts engagement has a beneficial
impact upon health over time. This observation, made in relation to a range of chronic
diseases, prompted a detailed consideration of the likely physiological and molecular
biological mechanisms underlying any positive results.
Attention was then turned to the likelihood of replicating and elaborating upon these
results. This necessitated a critical appraisal of the population-based datasets
underpinning international studies and a consideration of their UK comparators.
Complemented by detailed consultation with leading researchers in the field, this part of
the project yielded a series of recommendations for future analyses of the relationship
between arts engagement and health in the UK and beyond. This takes account of
the potential for further longitudinal studies, intervention into the surveys making up
the relevant datasets and an ambitious new biomedical analysis. In this effort, it is
suggested, attention will need to be paid to persistent inequalities of access to the arts,
health and economic resources. It is to be hoped that past and future research in this
area will provide the necessary evidence for policy-makers to invest in high-quality arts
activities well beyond the clinical environment.
Subjects
Link
http://www.artsforhealth.org/research/artsengagementandhealth/
Notes
Refers to: Fujiwara, D., Kudrna, L. and Dolan, P. (2014) ‘Quantifying the social impacts of culture and sport’. London: Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
Refers to: Fujiwara, D., Kudrna, L. and Dolan, P. (2014) ‘Quantifying and valuing the wellbeing impacts of culture and sport’. London: Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
#522973