The Director of Public Health’s 2019 Annual Report, Creative Health Improving health and wellbeing through the arts, focused on culture and the arts and the positive impact they have on health and wellbeing.
Across Northumberland, they are using culture to improve wellbeing and health services, particularly in areas of low participation, deprivation, and inequalities. Examples include place-making in Blyth and creating the foundations of a potential North East Creative Health Hub in a new Culture Centre. These projects are directed towards empowering people in their communities, working in partnership with them, and offering micro-grants to help revitalise places and improvement in care services for all, including staff. This work builds on Creative Places and People work funded by Arts Council England which includes wellbeing measures and reporting against the goal of health and wellbeing, using the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWEBs).
