Health Creation and Creative Health:Shared Conditions for Healthier Lives
At the National Centre for Creative Health (NCCH), we advocate for systems to move beyond treating illness alone, towards creating the conditions in which people, communities and non-statutory providers can support health and wellbeing over time. This is reflected in the Creative Health Review (2023), which argues that creative health should be part of a holistic, person-centred health and social care system focused on reducing inequalities and supporting people to live well for longer. This ambition connects closely with the work of organisations committed to ‘Health Creation’.
The Health Creation Alliance defines ‘Health Creation’ as ‘the process through which individuals and communities gain a sense of purpose, hope, mastery and control over their own lives and immediate environment’. While health creation and creative health are not the same thing, they share an important concern – that is, how health is shaped by relationships, environments, agency, trust, community power and the resources people can draw upon in everyday life.
Creative health offers one practical route through which these conditions can be strengthened. Creative, cultural and community activity can support connection, confidence, expression, belonging and participation. It can also help systems to work differently: building relationships across sectors, opening up new forms of dialogue, and recognising the role of culture and communities in prevention, care and recovery.
As NCCH continues to work with partners across culture, communities, health, social care, research and policy, we welcome organisations committed to Health Creation as important allies in a wider ecosystem of social and systems change.
For more information on the overlap between Health Creation and Creative Health, we invite you to view the recently published Health Creating Neighbourhood Health Blueprint 1.0, along with the APPG on Creative Health’s briefing on Creative Health and Neighbourhood Health.
