An ever-growing body of evidence is helping to describe and demonstrate the benefits of creativity and culture on communities and individuals' health and wellbeing.
Many of us who work in this area also want to evaluate and research our own work. This page is to help you find what's already out there, and understand how you can add to the evidence.
I want to find research and evaluation of other projects...
Scroll down to access two resources managed by our partners, which look at peer-reviewed evidence and evaluation.
We have been gathering evidence of the work happening across the sector since the lockdown, which you can find here.
Other key evidence summaries include:
- DCMS report: The role of the arts in improving health and wellbeing (Fancourt, Warren & Aughterson, September 2020)
- World Health Organization Synthesis Report (Fancourt & Finn, 2019)
- Creative Health: The Arts for Health & Wellbeing (All-Party Parliamentary Group for Arts, Health & Wellbeing, 2017)
- Arts and culture in health and wellbeing and in the criminal justice system: a summary of evidence (Arts Council England, 2018)
- Heritage and Wellbeing: The State of the Evidence (What Works Centre for Wellbeing, 2019)
- Museums for Health and Wellbeing. A Preliminary Report (National Alliance for Museums, Health and Wellbeing, 2016)
- Museums as Spaces for Wellbeing: A Second Report (National Alliance for Museums, Health and Wellbeing, 2018)
Evidence can take many other forms. Please refer to our Case Studies and to 70 Stories for other ways of telling the story of culture, health and wellbeing. You might also be interested in this list of key books compiled by the Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance.
I want to get involved with research, or evaluate my work...
There are many different ways you can assess the impacts of your work. If you want to get involved in a formal research study, we suggest contacting your local university to form a partnership. If you are more interested in evaluating the impact of your work please see some of the possibilities below.