We believe everyone has creative potential and that creativity can lead to healthier lives and communities. Active engagement with the arts and culture, whether through our own creative practice or through our enjoyment of the creative practice of others, is beneficial for the health and wellbeing of us all.
We are particularly keen to work in the space between the established worlds of arts, culture, health and social care, exploring how co-production and collaboration can provide new ways of thinking about the intersection between our creativity and our health.
Health inequalities are a key priority for the NCCH, reflecting the wider policy environment within which we work. The increasing gap in inequalities was evidenced in Health Equity in England: The Marmot Review 10 Years On, published in February 2020. Lack of access to cultural and creative opportunities too often mirrors other inequalities. Working with communities, developing co-production methods with people who use services and developing culturally specific activities and opportunities are key to challenging inequalities in health and in the arts and culture. The Covid-19 pandemic has reinforced and increased inequalities and made this work all the more urgent. Build Back Fairer: The COVID-19 Marmot Review investigates how the pandemic has affected health inequalities in England.
The Creative Health report is the most comprehensive publication to date documenting over 1000 published studies outlining the role of arts and creativity in supporting health across the life course. More recently, the World Health Organisation (WHO) scoping review: What is the evidence on the role of the arts in improving health and wellbeing? is intended to inform policy across the WHO European Region and beyond.
Arts Council England’s 10 Year strategy, Let’s Create, shows a welcome shift in direction towards greater diversity and a more inclusive definition of culture and creativity, with an acknowledgement of the value of creativity and culture for health and wellbeing. The pandemic has raised awareness of the value of creativity in everyday lives and its importance to wellbeing.
The NCCH
is linked to University College London through our trustee, Professor Helen Chatterjee, and has a
working relationship with the staff and students on the Creative Health
Masters course at
UCL.
The Royal Society for Public Health Special Interest Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing was a research partner throughout the Creative Health inquiry and continues to be an important research partner for the NCCH.
The NCCH has research relationships with a range of universities and research centres working in this field including King’s College London, the Centre for Cultural Value at the University of Leeds, and the Sidney De Haan Research Centre for Arts and Health at Canterbury Christ Church University.
The NCCH and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing (APPG) have launched a Creative Health Review Report which highlights the potential for creative health to help tackle pressing issues in health and social care and more widely, including health inequalities and the additional challenges we face as we recover from Covid-19. A panel of commissioners, with a wide breadth of expertise, have translated findings into recommendations for policymakers to encourage and inform the development of cross-governmental creative health strategy.
The NCCH is partner in a six year national research programme: 'Mobilising Community Assets to Tackle Health Inequalities’ funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) in collaboration with Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), and Medical Research Council (MRC).
Find out more about 'Mobilising Community Assets to Tackle Health Inequalities’ >>