Culture is essential for health behaviours. Firstly, because cultural contexts influence people’s motivation, ability and opportunity to engage in health behaviours. Secondly, because there is growing evidence that cultural engagement is itself an important health behaviour.

The field of arts and health explores how such cultural engagement through creative practices – including music, visual arts and theatre – can positively impact physical, mental and social well-being. Integrating arts into health care settings and public health initiatives has demonstrated benefits, such as reduced stress, improved recovery and greater social cohesion.

The Behavioural and Cultural Insights (BCI) Unit at WHO/Europe has played an important role in advancing arts and health research, driving implementation and exploring health policy change at the systems level (for example, through social prescribing). In 2019, WHO/Europe published a groundbreaking scoping review on the arts and health evidence base. This was the most comprehensive review of published literature at the time, resulting in an increasing number of WHO Member States across the world exploring cross-sectoral synergies between culture and health.

Engaging in culture and the arts as a health behaviour

Since then, WHO/Europe has been working with academics (such as the WHO Collaborating Centre for Arts and Health at University College London) and organizations (such as the Jameel Arts & Health Lab) to explore the population-level health benefits of arts and cultural engagement. Epidemiological data are increasingly showing how this kind of engagement, just like physical activity, has important health-protective attributes.