Health

Over the past several decades, evidence has mounted to demonstrate that the arts have positive and measurable impacts on individual and community health. The field of arts in health has emerged from a rapidly growing number of arts programs in healthcare settings.

Concurrently, creative placemaking initiatives across the United States have demonstrated that the arts are a powerful means for strengthening the social and physical environments in communities. The arts are widely utilized as a means for health education and wellness promotion in communities, but their applications are inconsistently recognized in the public health sector. The theoretical and practical structures that informs the use of the arts in community health settings are not well defined, so the arts remain a readily available, yet highly underutilized resource in public health.

Recognizing that a tipping point is near, ArtPlace America partnered with the University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine in 2018 to lead a national research effort that deepens and formalizes the intersection of the arts and public health. (View the original press release here.) “Creating Healthy Communities: Arts + Public Health in America” is a two-year national initiative designed to accelerate the collaboration of arts and public health practitioners seeking to build healthy communities in alignment with national public health goals.

Lead by a team of Center for Arts in Medicine research scholars, the project has brought together an array of existing initiatives and thought leaders in order to establish clear theoretical constructs, standardized research protocols with the potential for meaningful statistical power, and a framework for evidence-based practices and programs that utilize a comprehensive interdisciplinary knowledge base.

The Creating Healthy Communities through Cross-sector Collaboration white paper presents the views of more than 250 thought leaders from the public health, arts and culture, and community development sectors who were convened in working groups in 2018 and 2019. Their voices are joined by over 500 participants in a national field survey and focus groups, and are supported by findings of a scoping review of arts + public health literature.

With the public health sector as a primary intended audience, the Creating Healthy Communities through Cross-sector Collaboration white paper frames the value of the arts and culture for advancing health and well-being in communities. It offers examples and recommendations for expanding cross-sector collaboration and innovation, with the following goals:

• Advance collaboration among those working at the intersections of art and culture, public health, and community development
• Stimulate upstream interventions—aimed at systems, cultures, and policies—that reduce barriers to health and well-being
• Assert the value of arts and culture for increasing health, wellbeing, and equity in communities
• Foster transformative social change that advances health and wellbeing

This paper is also intended to offer value and guidance to community development, arts and culture, and other allied health sectors by providing examples of impactful cross-sector collaborations that engage arts and culture to address five critical public health issues: collective trauma, racism, social isolation and exclusion, mental health, and chronic disease. These concrete examples inform the paper's recommendations and call to action, which assert the value of the arts and culture for community health transformation, and for advancing the culture of health being envisioned today.

Download Creating Healthy Communities through Cross-sector Collaboration here.