Health, Well-being and Cultural Heritage event
NHSF's event on Health, Well-being and Cultural Heritage: Research, Evidence and Practice was held on the 12 September 2017, at the Tate Modern.
The contribution of arts and culture to health and well-being has received considerable attention over the last ten years from researchers, funders and government.
In collaboration with Collection Care Research at Tate, the Forum offered a free briefing session on this contribution. Following presentations from a panel of experts on state-of-the-art thinking on the topic, participants were invited to debate what kind of evaluation and evidence is needed to fill research gaps and build the evidence base. The event aimed ignite curiosity about how heritage science can contribute to this very active area of research and public policy interest.
There was much talk throughout the evening of measuring the impact of cultural heritage on health and wellbeing, and how to present this information to best influence social policies.
Dr Tony Munton discussed cost-benefit analysis as a means of attributing value to cultural and sport activities. He suggested measuring happiness and putting a financial value on it as the first step in this process, where the relative cost-benefit of culture and heritage activities could then be compared to that of other activities.
Beyond subjective wellbeing, other values can be attributed to cultural experiences: learning and community cohesion, in particular, can also be objects of focus. Tony highlighted the importance of audience awareness when measuring the impact of heritage and culture.
Professor Helen Chatterjee considered what type of evidence would catch the attention of health and social care professionals. Drawing examples from her own work on social prescribing (the use of non-clinical, community-based assets to bring about changes in subjective wellbeing), she painted a picture of the changes people go through when they are engaged in different cultural activities. Helen highlighted the opportunity for such projects to generate evidence of quantitative significance but also of qualitative descriptions of a 'post-museum state of mind': "acquisition of new skills", "sense of belonging", "improved quality of life"...
Professor Nick Barratt's address focused on qualitative evidence of a different kind, that of outcome as storytelling. Nick recommended capturing a range of anecdotal experience and shaping it into a picture of change. Illustrating this approach is his work with isolated communities, making collections more accessible and finding out which objects elicit a response from a group. In such a project, it is vital to personalise the experience and create a narrative, to be included in the presented evidence.
Dr Christina Buse presented her work on the Dementia and Dress project, focused on clothes as memory and biographical objects. She advocated for the consideration of tactile engagements when considering wellbeing and qualitative experiences. As a final note, Chrissy concluded that beyond the measuring of wellbeing impact, it is important to address the question of how to ensure this positive impact is sustainable and continues into the future.
Participants discussed opportunities and steps for the future, and concluded that more thought must be given to the architecture of evidence. Research on methods and types of evidence should take into account the target audience, and researchers should ensure the communities concerned have an opportunity to make their voices heard. Suggestions for future projects included the development of a regional toolkit or framework with a regional based model - as much current research is London-centric -, and partnerships with agencies commissioned by the local authorities to deliver mental health services.
Overall, participants agreed that stories and narratives tend to be the most convincing on a personal level, but that big health data and public data must be used to measure the benefits of cultural participation.
Further information, including speakers' presentation slides, can be found here.