About Arts on Prescription
The BC Alliance for Arts + Culture is undertaking a multi-year community engaged research project in collaboration with partners across the province. The project explores the benefits of prescribing arts and culture experiences to enhance people’s health and wellness. This idea is also known as “social prescribing”.
Social Prescribing is “a global movement of people bringing community capacity and healthcare services closer together by directly addressing the social determinants of health, from loneliness and social isolation to racism and ageism to income and housing and much more” (CISP, 2022).
This three-year, phased research project takes place from 2022 to 2025 and is built in collaboration with artists and cultural organizations working across BC. The study focuses on how to facilitate the work of BC cultural organizations that aim to support their community’s wellbeing.
The study looks into ways that culture influences social factors that impact health. Arts and culture organizations across BC are already working to support their community’s wellbeing, and this collaborative study aims to help stabilize and amplify their work through advocacy, skill-sharing and networking across sectors. Drawing upon existing social prescribing research and initiatives within and beyond BC, the study will use social prescribing as a prompt to investigate accessible cultural practices in BC and how they might be shared.
Current partners include Collingwood Neighbourhood House, Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and Two Rivers Gallery.
Research partners include the Community Engaged Research Initiative (CERi) at Simon Fraser University and Dr. Susan Cox from the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia.
The full name of the project is “Co-Creating Arts on Prescription – a Needs Assessment”, and we welcome questions at info@allianceforarts.com.
The BC Alliance for Arts and Culture would like to acknowledge generous support from the Strategic Initiatives Component of the Canada Cultural Investment Fund at the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Systems Change Momentum program at Vancouver Foundation.
