Arts and health

This chapter introduces the field of arts and health. It defines five arts forms: visual arts, design and craft; online, digital and electronic art; community and cultural festivals; performing arts and literature. Arts and health describes the practice of applying the arts across the health continuum, from end of life to optimal wellness, and includes using the arts for the intention of maintaining or improving health. Arts and health spans many sectors including arts and culture, education, health, government and the voluntary sector. The chapter provides an outline of the history of arts and health and explains how the field contributes to primary, secondary and tertiary disease prevention and salutogenesis. The work directly influences people's health and also the determinants of health. The chapter presents a healthy arts framework and provides an overview of how arts and health, underpinned by research-based evidence, has been growing over the last 25 years. Four examples of arts and health are described. These include BBC Music Day 2019 in the UK; Singing for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in Kent; Promesas y Traiciones, a radio novella broadcast in Alabama; and a Creative Arts Pilot Project to engage patients being cared for in an Australian mental healthcare unit.