Culture, heritage and creative industries for health and well-being

Expected Outcome: Projects should contribute to all of the following expected outcomes: Deepened knowledge of the potential positive effects of cultural experiences on health and well-being[1] is developed and made available to relevant stakeholders, along with validated scalable and replicable practices to reinforce these effects Key industrial, health, cultural, educational and/or civil society actors are aware of validated systemic approaches to make cultural experiences improve health and well-being and are engaged in producing or supporting such cultural experiences Competitive European cultural and creative sectors and industries systematically contribute to improve health and well-being Scope: It is widely recognised that cultural experiences, such as those offered by cultural heritage institutions (CHIs) or cultural and creative sectors and industries (CCSI), can be beneficial for health and well-being. Research done, though scattered and not always systematic, supports this conclusion, with for instance the World Health Organisation arguing that cultural experiences contribute to health in four areas: prevention of ill-health, promotion of healthy behaviour, as well as management and treatment of disease[2]. However, there is still a lack of systematic research into the key characteristics and circumstances of cultural experiences to best support health and well-being. The challenge is to remedy this situation by developing evidence-based and validated practices…