Arts and Health Scoping Research
Lead Research Organisation:
University College London
Department Name: Genetics Evolution and Environment
Abstract
The APPG Creative Health report published in 2017 provides the largest ever grouping of evidence demonstrating the value of arts engagement for health and wellbeing; the report argues that arts should be integrated into mainstream health and social care, and the increased interest in social prescribing offers an operational avenue to deliver this ambition. Critically further research is required to understand the value of arts engagement for different audiences and health conditions, including a better understanding of what works (best practice), how and why arts engagement is beneficial.
This proposal will scoping research to support a Strategic Priorities Fund application on: Arts, culture and health (to include arts-based social prescribing). Such scoping research is required to critically assess:
- Strengths and weaknesses of the current evidence base, with a focus on identifying gaps in the evidence base;
- Synergies and areas of uniqueness between 'arts and health' and 'social prescribing' research;
- Perceptions from key academics, practitioners and practice-based researchers on research priorities in the fields of arts and health and social prescribing (*see consultee list below);
- Exploration of feasible translation mechanisms for disbursing a large strategic grant including;
- A SWOT analysis of a large grant scheme being administered and disbursed via the proposed National Strategic Centre for Arts, Health and Wellbeing, as compared to a UKRI-led model.
This proposal will scoping research to support a Strategic Priorities Fund application on: Arts, culture and health (to include arts-based social prescribing). Such scoping research is required to critically assess:
- Strengths and weaknesses of the current evidence base, with a focus on identifying gaps in the evidence base;
- Synergies and areas of uniqueness between 'arts and health' and 'social prescribing' research;
- Perceptions from key academics, practitioners and practice-based researchers on research priorities in the fields of arts and health and social prescribing (*see consultee list below);
- Exploration of feasible translation mechanisms for disbursing a large strategic grant including;
- A SWOT analysis of a large grant scheme being administered and disbursed via the proposed National Strategic Centre for Arts, Health and Wellbeing, as compared to a UKRI-led model.
Planned Impact
This proposal will conduct scoping research which will feed into the development of a draft Strategic Priorities Fund (SPF) bid. The scoping process will provide impact by engaging the various stakeholders (academics, arts practitioners, arts organisations, policymakers, parliamentarians, funders) in discussions regarding the impact and value of arts and health, and more broadly social prescribing.
The AHRC will benefit from having a draft SPF bid which is underpinned by robust scoping research. If successful the academic and arts practitioner communities will benefit from having more research funding available.
The AHRC will benefit from having a draft SPF bid which is underpinned by robust scoping research. If successful the academic and arts practitioner communities will benefit from having more research funding available.
Publications
Koebner I
(2020)
4046 Museum and Arts-Space Programming Intended to Improve Health: Interim Survey Results
in Journal of Clinical and Translational Science
Thomson LJ
(2020)
Art, nature and mental health: assessing the biopsychosocial effects of a 'creative green prescription' museum programme involving horticulture, artmaking and collections.
in Perspectives in public health
Fancourt D
(2020)
Social, cultural and community engagement and mental health: cross-disciplinary, co-produced research agenda.
in BJPsych open
Thomson LJ
(2021)
The role of cultural, community and natural assets in addressing societal and structural health inequalities in the UK: future research priorities.
in International journal for equity in health
Koebner IJ
(2021)
Developing a framework for arts in health programs targeting individuals with chronic pain: a mixed-methods study of practitioners.
in Public health
Edwards SJ
(2021)
Anthroponosis and risk management: a time for ethical vaccination of wildlife?
in The Lancet. Microbe
Bungay H
(2021)
Arts, creativity and health.
in Public health
| Description | We have identified key priorities for future health inequalities research including a need for more community-based research, focused in regions experiencing the highest inequalities and disparities. We have also identified that it is important to know more about the impact and efficacy of social prescribing interventions, in order to optimise delivery for such programs. |
| Exploitation Route | This research is ongoing, the outcomes of our current research, including a survey, will be made available via our website and ongoing talks. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Creative Economy,Education,Environment,Healthcare,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| URL | https://culturehealthresearch.wordpress.com/inequalities-in-the-uk/ |
| Description | Findings are feeding into ongoing strategic developments regarding social prescribing, personalised care and the role of community assets in supporting health and wellbeing. This is occurring via invited talks, meetings, provision of advice and input into the work of national groups such as the National Academy for social prescribing, the all party Parliamentary group for arts health and well-being, the culture health and well-being alliance, and the social prescribing network. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2020 |
| Sector | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Creative Economy,Environment,Healthcare,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal,Economic,Policy & public services |
| Description | UCL Internal GCRF Small Grant |
| Amount | £78,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University College London |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2020 |
| End | 06/2020 |
| Description | Partnership with non-academic partners |
| Organisation | NHS England |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Connected with a range of non-academic partners including: NHS England Personalised Care Team, National Academy for Social Prescribing, Culture Health and Welllbeing Alliance, DCMS, Dept of Health and Social Care. Consulted with these partners about health inequalities |
| Collaborator Contribution | Partners provided advice, guidance and, opinions regarding their priorities for health inequalities research |
| Impact | Agreement to form a research hub with NASP |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | AHRC/DCMS Boundless Creativity Workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Invited to give advice as part of this workshop which sparked lots of interesting debate about how arts can support indviduals through the pandemic |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Academic presentation to scholars and arts professionals |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Symposium on contribution of culture to social wellbeing: organised by Arts Council England, April 3rd, Manchester |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Academic presentation to scholars and arts professionals |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Keynote for Alberta Museums Association conference about Museums and Health, September 2019 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.museums.ab.ca/what-we-do/annual-conference/conference-2019.aspx |
| Description | Academic presentation to scholars and arts professionals |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Arts and Health Workshop organsied by The Cultural Capuital Exchangs, London, April 2019 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Academic presentation to scholars and heritage professionals |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Keynote for Medical Museion Conference at University of Copenhagen, May 2019 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Academic presentation to scholars and heritage professionals |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Keynote presentation at conference in Ghent, Belgium as part of: Participation in cultural heritage for mental health recovery Conference, November 2018. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Academic presentation to scholars and students |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Keynote at Nottingham University Health Humanities Conference January 2019 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Academic presentation to scholars and students |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | UCL IAS seminar as part of Treatment and Wellbeing in an Aging Society: Disciplinary intersections between Literature, Art and Health event March 2019 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Academic presentation to scholars, medical and arts professionals |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Central Saint Martins and UCL joint workshop on arts, health and wellbeing, May 2019 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Academic presentation to scholars, medical and arts professionals |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | APPG Arts and Health event for the SW Academic Health Sciences Partnership on Social Prescirbing, May 2019 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Arts4Dementia Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Launch of Arts4Dementia's Arts4Brain Health SP report |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://arts4dementia.org.uk/our-presidents-blog/ |
| Description | Centre for Cultural Value, Culture on Referral workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Sharing data and findings from mutliple studies on theipotential of social prescribing to address health inequity |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Creative Lives Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Cross sector conference drawing together researchers, practitioners and people with lived experience - I was co-host and panelist |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.ucl.ac.uk/epidemiology-health-care/research/behavioural-science-and-health/resources/exp... |
| Description | GIVE: Voluntering for Wellbeing Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Conference organised as part of The Heritage Fund project: GIVE: Voluntering for Wellbeing. Give: Volunteering for Wellbeing is a National Lottery Heritage Fund project led by UCL on behalf of the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance in collaboration with the Horniman Museum and Gardens, Natural History Museum, and Valence House Museum. Made possible by money raised by National Lottery players, the project will make heritage more accessible to people experiencing health inequalities. Working with the three museum partners, our new volunteering programmes will help open up hidden and unused collections to a greater number of people. This conference showcased main findings from the project and brought together wider audiences interested in voluntering wellbeing. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://culturehealthresearch.wordpress.com/give/ |
| Description | International Culture, Health and Wellbeing Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Largest international conference focusing on arts, creativity and health - invited panelist/chair |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.culturehealthandwellbeing.org.uk/news/general-news/culture-health-and-wellbeing-internat... |
| Description | Knowledge Exchange workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The Cultural Capital Exchange - Arts & Health Workshop |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | More Culture, Less Medicine Conference, Brighton and Hove City Council |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This conference sought to draw attention to the value of culture in supporting public health; I gave the Keynote providing context and key findings from our research |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.creativefuture.org.uk/arts-health-and-wellbeing/more-culture-less-medicine-2/ |
| Description | NHSE Personalised Care Social Prescirbing Link Worker Webinar |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This talk described our social prescribing research and how SP tackles health inequalities |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | National Academy for Social Prescribing; The Show |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | NASP Showcase event - I talked about the Academic Partners Collaborative and the evidence reviews we are conducting for NASP |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Podcast: Public Health Disrupted: How arts and creativity can tackle health inequalities? |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | A podcast for UCL Health of the Public's PH Distriupted series: How arts and creativity can tackle health inequalities? |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://soundcloud.com/uclsound/public-health-disrupted-how-can-arts-and-creativity-tackle-health-in... |
| Description | Presentation to Arts sector professionals |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presentation to Arts Council England for their naional Arts and Health training event |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Reframing Museums Conference, Louvre Abu Dhabi + New York University |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | At this confrenece organised by the Louvre Abu Dhabi + New York University I spoke about Museums and Empathy - this sparked lots of interesting discussion about how museums support emotional wellbeing, e.g. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/analysis/louvre-abu-dhabi-symposium |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://nyuad.nyu.edu/en/events/2020/november/reframing-museums.html |
| Description | Research talk |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Talk to about 30 environmental psychology sholars and tsudents at the University of Cardiff about synergies between human and environmental healtjh |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Research talk |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Archaeology, Heritage and Health workshop - funded by MARCH Network Plus Funds. This workshop helped to establish a new MARCH Network Special Interest Group involving professional practitioners, researchers, people with lived experience and third sector organisations interested in Archaeology and Mental Health. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.marchnetwork.org/opportunities |
| Description | Seminar at Cardiff University |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Delivered a talk on natural and cultural assets, community participation and the links between human and environmental health to the Environmental Psychology Dept at Cardiff Uni. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Talk at acaemic conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Arts Meets Health: SMaRteN Conference on 14th November |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.smarten.org.uk/arts-meets-health.html |
| Description | Talk, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This invited talk was arranged to support and guide the Art Gallery of Ontario's community development programme; the Q&A that followed helped the museum to argue for expanding their programme to include more people from disadvantaged communities and consider issues of health inequaities. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Talk, National Social Prescribing Champions Scheme Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | I was pleased to share findings from multiple studies about the value of social prescirbing to people from marginalised backgrounds, which sparked lots of great questions frok the audience about how to make social prescribing more accessible and equitable. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | UCL-National Trust Partnership Workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Launch of UCL-NT Evidence Reviews: our talk focused on historic buildings and wellbeing |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |