Arts on Prescription in the Baltic Sea Region

Arts on prescription is a concept that has already been tested on small scale programs in countries like the UK, Sweden, and Denmark. The idea is that people with poor mental wellbeing due to conditions such as depression, stress or anxiety, or people at risk of developing such conditions, receive a prescription, not for medicine or therapy but for taking part in regular art activities in group settings. This has been proven to have a positive effect on mental health.

When planning and implementing such a programme, public authorities are challenged by the underdeveloped cooperation between the culture and health sector, lack of knowledge on how to set up, organise and evaluate a programme and lack of long-term financing.

Purpose

The partners of the project will jointly develop a model programme that is based on state-of-the-art evidence and experience, but adaptable to different local conditions and public health systems. The programme will be piloted by local and regional public authorities in cooperation with cultural institutions and evaluated for its health effects, organisational set-up and economic benefits. The partners who will be preparing and piloting the program, include three local public authorities (Saldus/LV, Cēsis/LV, Odense/DK) and three regional public authorities (West Pomerania/PL, Bremen/DE, and Norrbotten/SE), each of which cooperates with an institution in the field of culture and cultural education (Media Dizajn/PL, Bremer Volkshochschule/DE, Sunderby Folk High School/SE). This way, culture and health departments as well as NGOs take part in the project. The piloting partners are supported in the development of the model programme and in the evaluation of its piloting by three universities: The National Institute of Public Health (University of Southern Denmark), Turku University of Applied Sciences, and the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences. Each of these universities brings in complementary expertise in the evaluation of health effects, organisational setup, and the economic cost/benefits.