Birmingham City Council Public Health – ‘Creative Public Health’
Birmingham City Council Public Health are proud ambassadors of creative health. They have formulated a three-year programme entitled ‘Creative Public Health’ which is dedicated to assessing the landscape, gathering data and identifying the current initiatives and delivery, as well as opportunities for development and growth. This programme will inform strategic action for the City and along with key partners will look to implement evidence at the end of the programme, underpinned by a four-year strategy.
The aim is for health policies to integrate the benefits of creative health (which includes arts, culture, and heritage) and for arts, culture and heritage organisations and bodies to invest more in the exploration of health outcomes and addressing health inequalities. Birmingham’s knowledge and evidence approach is to gather research, develop frameworks, and champion co-production initiatives across the city aligned to, but not limited to, the Joint Birmingham Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2022-2030, Birmingham and Solihull Integrated Care System Strategy for Health and Social Care 2023-2030, Public Health Outcomes Framework and current best practice around arts, culture and heritage development and engagement.
Work takes place in cooperation and collaboration across a range of partners within the arts, cultural and heritage sectors, and links are developing with stakeholders, including end users and arts, cultural and heritage organisations to evidence the need and look to advance the Creative Public Health agenda in Birmingham. The Public Health Team are working with key partners in the city, including key anchor organisations and the community and social enterprise sector, to develop and deliver evidence-based, joined-up strategic work.
“The arts, culture and health programme has been a powerful deliverer of engagement across diverse communities, building bridges, and making lasting connections. An inclusive and diverse programme of activity that explores the relationships between arts, culture and health helps promote community cohesion, making health improvements, and developing new skills and knowledge whilst engaging with new audiences.”
Birmingham City Council has applied creative health in its approach to tackling the significant health inequalities faced by its diverse communities. The Public Health Communities Team commissioned an array of projects for the Arts, Culture and Health programme. One example was a Jamaican 60th Anniversary Celebration Event which used arts, heritage and culture to engage residents in workshops and activities to address health issues such as pregnancy, mental health, musculoskeletal disease, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. This included activities such as culturally appropriate cooking workshops, using traditional recipes to provide information about nutrition and the links to diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Dance and Jamaican drumming workshops were conducted with the aim of uplifting and engaging participants to improve both their mental and physical health through music and dance. For mental health, workshops used activities such as rock painting and creating life maps, with a key cultural focus upon an individual’s journey from their homeland, to encourage the process of reflection and help build and strengthen mental resilience.
The programme demonstrated improvements in health literacy and mental health and wellbeing, increased skills and confidence in artistic output, boosting self-esteem and confidence and improved confidence to discuss health at home, particularly in communities and genders that do not usually have health conversations. It will continue to be supported by the council through its permanent inclusion in the Public Health Department.
More Creative Health Review Case Studies >>
Find out more about NCCH's and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing (APPG AHW) Creative Health Review >>