Medical Delta Program ‘Health promotion with arts and culture’

Art in museums or a classical concert can have a positive effect on health: it reduces stress, provides meaning, and can, for example, lower loneliness, as increasingly more studies show. But what about, for example, Dutch-language life songs or Hollywood films? Can more popular forms of art and culture also improve health? This is investigated by the Medical Delta Program ‘Health promotion with arts and culture’.

Art and culture are already widely used in mental health care and elderly care. The use of art and culture is also increasing in physical health care. Much research on the effects of this focuses on cultural expressions such as art museums and classical music. As a result, 'highbrow' museum art and classical music dominate in healthcare. This assumes that there is a similar effect among different people. 

Haydn and Hazes

Little research has been conducted on health interventions using more popular cultural expressions. The Medical Delta Program 'Health promotion with arts and culture' invites citizens and cultural providers to collaboratively create a tailored offering and to establish evidence-based programs that work preventively and supportively. These programs will be tailored to the diverse cultural preferences of various social groups, whether it's a concert by Hazes Jr. or a performance of a composition by Haydn. 

New technologies such as virtual reality (VR) make art and culture accessible to people with fewer physical or financial means. The research program also explores which innovations can be used for culture-driven care interventions. For instance, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra already has a collaboration with the Sophia Children's Hospital, allowing children to 'walk' 'through' the orchestra thanks to VR headsets. 

Rotterdam: diverse city, diverse cultural offering

The multi-ethnic, super-diverse composition of Rotterdam and the significant socio-economic differences between neighborhoods make this city an excellent breeding ground for providing scientific evidence on the various effects of art and culture on (mental) health. Moreover, Rotterdam has a rich and diverse array of art and cultural institutions and facilities. This can help create a cultural infrastructure dedicated to inclusive prevention and care, thereby helping to reduce the burden on healthcare. 

From the Medical Delta program, a project facilitator engages all relevant cultural institutions and parties in Rotterdam and builds a strong network of institutions and citizens

Goals

The program aims to achieve the following goals:

• develop methods to enable cultural institutions to collaboratively create evidence-based art and culture programs with diverse citizens;
• measure the effect of these programs on the (mental) health of citizens;
• gain insight into the effects of these programs for different social groups;
• investigate whether these programs lead to greater participation in art and culture among groups that are currently less involved in existing art and culture health programs;
• map out the possibilities and limitations of digital technologies in providing health-promoting cultural programs

Contact

For more information or if you're interested in participating, please contact one of our innovation managers.