A Collaborative Platform Enhancing Arts, Culture and Health Policies, Practice and Research

Europe is facing growing pressures on mental health and wellbeing, alongside rising levels of loneliness, social isolation, and the challenges of an ageing population. Arts and culture have real potential to help, yet this remains underused in mainstream health policy.

European Culture and Health Hub (ECHH) is a Horizon Europe project that wants to bring the arts and culture into Europe’s health agenda.

A key aim of the ECHH project is to connect policymakers and practitioners across culture, health, social care, education, humanitarian and youth sectors to build stronger collaboration. Our aim is to further understanding of how engagement with the arts and culture can contribute to population health and wellbeing across these different sectors. Ultimately, the project strives for creating a momentum for broader systemic change: embedding arts and culture more deeply in public health approaches at European, national, regional and local levels.

Research from the World Health Organization for Europe suggests that engaging with the arts can support psychological wellbeing and strengthen community resilience by helping people reconnect with each other and the places they live. Participation in cultural activities has also been linked to improved mental health, stronger social cohesion, and more resilient communities.

To achieve it’s aims, ECHH focuses on:

1. Strengthening the evidence base underpinning culture and health policy and practice via producing three broad online evidence gap maps
2. Fostering the implementation, adaptation and replication of the best cross-sectoral culture and health practices via evaluations and training
3. Increasing awareness of the impacts of arts and culture on health, wellbeing and social inclusion among policymakers and practitioners across sectors at European, national, regional and local levels by implementing a wide reach awareness raising campaign, and targeted awareness raising sessions
4. Fostering policy discussions, knowledge exchange and cross-sectoral cooperation among policymakers, professionals and academics across culture, health, social care, humanitarian, youth and education sectors through a dedicated interdisciplinary, interactive, hybrid platform European Culture and Health Hub
5. Equipping the policymakers with recommendations and practical guidelines to implement sustainable cross-sectoral policies and programmes in the field of culture and health.

Project partners:

Turku University of Applied Sciences (Finland)
University College London (United Kingdom)
The Center for Primary Health Care Research Region Skåne (Sweden)
Culture Action Europe (Belgium)
EuroHealthNet (Belgium)
University of Porto (Portugal)
Cultural Welfare Center ETS (Italy)
Cultura en Vena (Spain)
Nord University (Norway)
University of Groningen/ Arts in Health Netherlands (Netherlands)
Latvian Academy of Culture (Latvia)
Mozarteum University Salzburg (Austria)
Cluj Cultural Centre (Romania)
University of Southern Denmark (Denmark)
Hope (United Kingdom)

ECHH project is additionally supported by associated partners contributing international expertise, policy engagement, and cross-sector collaboration: Arts + Health Ireland / Réalta (Ireland), Secretariat of the Northern Dimension Partnership on Culture (Latvia), United Cities and Local Governments (Spain), UNESCO (France), and the Northern Dimension Partnership in Public Health and Social Well-being (Sweden).

Liisa Laitinen, Chief Content Officer
Arts Academy, Turku University of Applied Sciences
liisa.laitinen@turkuamk.fi