Culture and Health and Well-Being | Towards the Culture Compass: A Sector Blueprint

This briefing on Culture and Health and Well-Being (Chapter 5) was edited and coordinated by Amateo and Cluj Cultural Centre and forms part of 10 policy briefings in the discussion paper ‘Towards the Culture Compass: A Sector Blueprint‘ published by Culture Action Europe. Read the Sector Blueprint to discover other briefings on:

• Artistic Freedom
• Working Conditions
• Artistic Research, Culture and Innovation
• International Cultural Relations
• Culture and Sustainability
• Cultural Participation
• Access to Cultural and Arts Education
• Culture and Security
• Culture and Digital

download the sector blueprint

Context

The World Health Organisation defines health as ‘a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. ’ This perspective underlines the role of social, emotional, and psychological conditions in enabling people to live with dignity, connection, and meaning. Cultural participation directly contributes to these conditions: active forms such as singing, dancing, or community art-making strengthen agency, confidence, and belonging, while receptive forms such as attending concerts, exhibitions, or heritage sites foster reflection, empathy, and shared identity.

Key documents including the World Health Organisation 2019 scoping review, the 2022 CultureForHealth report, the EU Comprehensive Approach to Mental Health, the Open Method of Coordination group on culture and health, and the EU Work Plan for Culture establish a robust evidence base of these effects and outline pathways for integrating culture into health, education, social, and cohesion policies. Together, they demonstrate that arts and culture have measurable impacts on disease prevention, management, treatment, and recovery from illnesses, and highlight their potential as a structural element of well-being.

However, significant gaps persist at the systemic level. Because engaging in culture is still rarely recognised as a determinant of health and its role across other sectors is poorly understood, initiatives remain fragmented and lack coordination. The weak integration of culture into health policy risks instrumentalising the arts, rather than positioning them as equal partners. As a result, artists and cultural professionals continue to face insufficient recognition and remuneration, inadequate protection, and deficient structural support. Training and projects are largely driven from the cultural field alone, leaving an imbalance with health actors and relying too often on culture’s already limited budgets. Unequal access adds to the problems, with disadvantaged and marginalized groups frequently excluded, both as participants and as professionals. Finally, research and evaluation methods remain inconsistent and fragmented, limiting the robust evidence base that policymakers and health systems need.

While health policy remains primarily the responsibility of Member States, the EU can reinforce well-being through strategic, cross-sector action. Culture plays a vital role in supporting our mental and social health and can contribute to inclusion, social cohesion, and resilience in health, education, youth, social, active aging and care policies. Existing programmes such as Erasmus+ , Creative Europe, the New European Bauhaus, and Cohesion Policy already offer mechanisms to embed culture in these fields. However, other programmes lack entry points for cultural interventions. At the same time, EU responses to global challenges, including armed conflicts, migration, and the climate crisis, show how cultural approaches can help move beyond siloed solutions towards more holistic strategies that strengthen collective health, social resilience, and equity.

Proposals

• Adopt an EU Recommendation on Cultural Participation as a Determinant of Health and Social Well-being, requiring Member States to embed culture in health and social strategies at all levels, including measures that support the workforce delivering these activities.
• Regularly report on the frequency of active and receptive cultural participation by region, age, income, and social group; connect it to self-reported wellbeing, with benchmarks to reduce disparities (through Eurostat and national surveys).
• Anchor cultural participation within EU human- and social-rights frameworks (such as the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the European Pillar of Social Rights).
• In collaboration with the World Health Organisation/Europe, develop EU guidelines for integrating the arts into healthcare systems, covering procedures, roles, and implementation standards.
• Promote collaborative models in which cultural professionals work as partners with health teams in hospitals, elderly care, and mental health settings without compromising professional boundaries or instrumentalising culture.
• Mandate Eurostat to embed into surveys culture-sensitive metrics of individual and collective well-being—identity, belonging, trust, intergenerational exchange and civic engagement.
• Fund Horizon Europe clusters combining arts, social sciences, neuroscience, and health to develop new frameworks for understanding and measuring well-being. Recognise artistic and participatory methods as valid alongside traditional biomedical research. Integrate arts and humanities into medical and health education to foster a more holistic, inclusive approach to health.
• Finance arts-and-health actions primarily from health, social or regional budgets (not culture’s limited funds), and establish multi-year, structural funding lines beyond short projects to ensure sustainability and sector development.
• Strengthen community infrastructures (schools, libraries, cultural centres, public spaces and festivals) as everyday entry points for creativity and collective well-being through Erasmus+ , AgoraEU, National and Regional Partnership Plans, and the New European Bauhaus (NEB Lab).
• Establish an EU-level observatory within existing knowledge infrastructures (e.g. Knowledge Centre for Culture, Knowledge4Policy, Eurobarometer, Eurostat, CultureForHealth) to synthesise evidence, develop common frameworks, and pool best practices.
• At the national level, support the creation of arts and health competence centres as hubs for practitioner training, cross-sector collaboration, and community-based support.
• Integrate cultural well-being into climate and sustainability policies in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
• Fund youth programmes that combine artistic practice, identity exploration, peer support and mental-health guidance, including safe physical and digital cultural hubs. Strengthen arts education in schools to enable young people to express their creativity in a safe, non-judgmental, and non-competitive environment that fosters social bonds.
• Support arts-based initiatives that reduce burnout, build resilience, and help workers adapt to a changing world. Include cultural engagement in care protocols and staff support systems to protect the mental health, emotional well-being, and sense of belonging of workers.
• Support community-based arts programs integrated with social and care services to promote cognitive, emotional, and social well-being among older adults.
• Prioritise the mental health of artists and workers in the cultural and creative sectors as a structural issue. Strengthen EU-level research on mental health in the cultural and creative sectors, across different professions, statuses, mobility patterns, and stress factors. Address long-term risks such as lack of access to funding opportunities, regulatory issues, related administrative burdens (including visas), financial insecurity and social and performance anxiety. Support systemic solutions (accessible mental health services, preventative care, and peer-based support) adapted to the realities of the cultural sector.
• Ensure targeted mental health and well-being support for artists and workers in the cultural and creative sectors from marginalised and vulnerable backgrounds, including persons with disabilities, forcibly displaced individuals, caregivers, emerging artists, LGBTQ+ individuals, ethnic minorities, indigenous peoples, and those living in conflict zones. Such support should be recognised as a structural priority and delivered through a mix of formal and informal training and culturally sensitive, embodied, and community-based approaches to emotional resilience.
• Launch EU-wide awareness campaigns on arts and health literacy.

Annex: Resources

1. Arts and Health: Supporting the Mental Well-being of Forcibly Displaced People, World Health Organization, 2022.
2. Communication on a Comprehensive Approach to Mental Health (COM/2023/298 final), European Commission, 2023.
3. CultureForHealth Report: Culture’s Contribution to Health and Well-being, CultureForHealth / Culture Action Europe, 2022.
4. Culture, Health and Well-being (chapter in The Social Origins of Health and Well-being), Cambridge University Press, 2001.
5. Culture’s Expanding Role in Health and Well-being, Culture Action Europe, 2025.
6. Handbook of Well-being, Noba Scholar (DEF Publishers), 2018.
7. Health as Complete Well-being: The WHO Definition and Beyond, Public Health Ethics (Oxford University Press), 2023.
8. Measuring Well-being: Interdisciplinary Perspectives from the Social Sciences and the Humanities, Oxford University Press, 2021.
9. Mental Health, Well-being and International Cultural Mobility. Report and Policy, On the Move, 2024.
10. Oxford Textbook of Creative Arts, Health, and Wellbeing, Oxford University Press, 2016.
11. Position Paper on Culture, Health and Well-being, Culture Action Europe, 2024.
12. Social Prescribing Policy, Research and Practice: Transforming Systems and Communities for Improved Health and Wellbeing, Springer Nature, 2024.
13. The Status Syndrome: How Social Standing Affects Our Health and Longevity, Macmillan / Bloomsbury, 2004.
14. Wellbeing: Alternative Policy Perspectives, LSE Press, 2022.

Culture Compass for Europe

A brief summary of how the proposals of the policy briefing relates to the Culture Compass for Europe released by the European Commission in November 2025 will be provided soon.