Mike White

The state of arts and health in England

This paper provides an overview of the current state of the arts and health field in England, through an examination of practice, research and policy developments. Five features of arts and health practice are identified: the scale of the sector, regional variations, mapping of arts and health initiatives, recent conferences and symposia, and the role of key agencies supporting arts and health initiatives. Eight areas of arts and health research activity are considered: retrospective qualitative evaluations, prospective evaluations with some quantitative assessments, experimental research on arts and health initiatives, economic evaluations of arts interventions, systematic reviews of arts and health research, theory development to underpin research efforts, and the establishment of dedicated arts and health research centres and research programmes. The final section considers three 2007 arts and health publications from the Department of Health and Arts Council England. There has been disappointment that the policy recommendations in these documents have not been acted upon. At the time of writing, however, there are some signs of renewed efforts to encourage national leadership from the Department of Health.

Researching the benefits of arts in health

Purpose – This review article seeks to draw on experience in the UK to describe the different forms that arts in health activity can take and to examine the challenges for research in this field.Design/methodology/approach – A case study is used to describe the kind of arts in health project that intends to enhance the social capital of its community and to show how difficult it is to measure the effects of this work using conventional measures of health improvement. However, those who are responsible for providing funding for arts in health are increasingly demanding results that indicate a measurable health gain from the projects.Findings – A literature review of the evaluation of arts in health projects in the UK has shown that few aim at direct health improvement but rather at intermediate indicators of health gain, such as raising awareness of health issues and social activity and participation. This suggests that artists instinctively locate their work as having value within a social model of health...

Inequalities, the arts and public health: Towards an international conversation

This paper considers how participatory arts informed by thinking in public health can play a significant part internationally in addressing inequalities in health. It looks beyond national overviews of arts and health to consider what would make for meaningful international practice, citing recent initiatives of national networks in English-speaking countries and examples of influential developments in South America and the European Union. In the context of public health thinking on inequalities and social justice, the paper posits what would make for good practice and appropriate research that impacts on policy. As the arts and health movement gathers momentum, the paper urges the arts to describe their potency in the policy-making arena in the most compelling ways to articulate their social, economic and cultural values. In the process, it identifies the reflexive consideration of participatory practice – involving people routinely marginalised from decision-making processes – as a possible avenue into this work.

Arts, health & wellbeing: reflections on a national seminar series and building a UK research network

Abstract An account is provided of a UK national seminar series on Arts, Health and Wellbeing funded by the Economic and Social Research Council during 2012–13. Four seminars were organised addressing current issues and challenges facing the field. Details of the programme and its outputs are available online. A central concern of the seminar programme was to provide a foundation for creating a UK national network for researchers in the field to help promote evidence-based policy and practice. With funding from Lankelly Chase Foundation, and the support of the Royal Society for Public Health, a Special interest Group for Arts, Health and Wellbeing was launched in 2015.

Arts practice and disconnected youth in Australia: Impact and domains of change

Background: This paper describes research conducted with Big hART, Australias most awarded participatory arts company. It considers three projects, LUCKY, GOLD and NGAPARTJI NGAPARTJI across separate sites in Tasmania, Western NSW and Northern Territory, respectively, in order to understand project impact from the perspective of project participants, Arts workers, community members and funders. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 29 respondents. The data were coded thematically and analysed using the constant comparative method of qualitative data analysis. Results: Seven broad domains of change were identified: psychosocial health; community; agency and behavioural change; the Art; economic effect; learning and identity. Conclusions: Experiences of participatory arts are interrelated in an ecology of practice that is iterative, relational, developmental, temporal and contextually bound. This means that questions of impact are contingent, and there is no one path that participants travel or single measure that can adequately capture the richness and diversity of experience. Consequently, it is the productive tensions between the domains of change that are important and the way they are animated through Arts practice that provides sign posts towards the impact of Big hART projects.

Arts, mental health and social inclusion

This article considers how an evidence base may be found for the effectiveness of using arts in mental health care services. It looks at what arts in health work brings to the promotion of social inclusion and summarises current issues in the field. It calls for arts in health workers to share their practice and undertake research as a preliminary to evaluation. It outlines the contextual factors that appear to have a bearing on the successful development of arts in mental health services.

Beyond the Local Agenda: International Perspectives in Community-based Arts and Health

The contemporary challenges to health and well-being expose a tendency towards two contrasting modes of engagement and understanding. On the one hand, policy analysts observe an individualisation of responsibility and blame for the production of health and ill-health; on the other, attention to social determinants, inequalities and globalisation locate the production of health and ill-health within complex relationships shaped across both space and time. Whilst arts and health activities function within both modes, their local and fragmented nature has meant that, to date, little research attention has been accorded within the second mode to the potential value to the field of an international focus. The papers in this special issue on international perspectives in community-based arts and health offer a first set of explorations that both tease out the riches from comparative research and, hopefully, may provoke further engagements of research at this scale. The opening paper, by Parkinson andWhite, lays out the issues confronting the field of arts and health in tackling health inequalities both nationally and internationally. The authors reflect on the histories and current trajectories of arts and health networks across a number of English and non-English speaking nations, thereby articulating the issues in building the strength of the grassroots traditions of arts and health towards greater impact. Wright and colleagues pick up the theme of how arts and health projects may generate change through a comparative study across different sites in an Australian initiative, hART, for disconnected young people. They position the project’s impact as emergent from productive tensions across seven domains of change, arguing that how arts practice animates these domains is crucial to impact. The emphasis from this single country study on the management of tension across specific domains offers a general model that demands validation in other country settings. Continuing with the nature of impact, Jensen examines the factors that influence the ability of arts and health organisations to enhance their participants’ wellbeing through comparison of two projects in the United Kingdom and Denmark that aim to impact on social capital and identity as elements of well-being. Jensen emphasises the importance for arts and health organisations of a supportive policy environment with strategies for sustainability. The fourth paper shifts the focus from impact onto the nature of arts and health practice itself. Raw and Mantecón compare artists’ practice across the North of England and Mexico City and, despite little shared history, language or policy priorities, find a convergence in practice captured through six elements. Exposing the commonalities in practice for community-based arts and health across very different settings simultaneously exposes the potential for international cooperation in professional development, institutional support and alliances for advocacy. Wilkinson and colleagues complement this attention to practice in demonstrating the potential for volunteer, peer involvement in arts and health projects, in this case in arts activities facilitated by seniors for other seniors who are socially isolated or in underserved areas in Canada. The final paper takes the contributions of arts and health into the heart of

Lantern Parades in the Development of Arts in Community Health

This paper describes the development of two annual lantern parades as case examples of arts in community health, which the authors define as a distinct area of activity operating mainly outside of acute healthcare settings, characterised by the use of participatory arts to promote health. The parades took place in Gateshead 1994–2006 and later in Stockton-on-Tees from 2009 to the present, and the paper reflects on the factors that made for the success of the Gateshead parade and also the problems that led to its demise. It then describes and assesses the Stockton parade, and the benefits and challenges of a workshop ethos of ‘positive regard’ with reference to interview data gathered from adult volunteers and school staff. It considers the potential of this annual ‘tradition’ to shape communal memories that identify with place, and it sets out its aspirations for future programme and research.

The potent arts

It has been argued that arts participation may be ‘more potent than anything medicine has to offer’ (Smith, 2002). Travelling further upstream from the governments initiatives to improve access to talking therapies as a solution to the mounting burden of depression, this paper describes ways in which community arts programmes involving primary schools are seeking to strengthen the mental wellbeing of children. The arts, the authors argue, deal in imagination, and imagination can be stronger than will power. Thus, by harnessing the imagination, arts interventions can influence change in childrens health patterns into adulthood, and thereby help establish a healthy culture in a healthier nation.