Seminar: 'Arts, Cultural Engagement and Public Health'

Speaker: Dr Daisy Fancourt

There is growing research demonstrating the effects of arts and cultural engagement on health across the lifespan, from lullabies helping premature babies to gain weight, to magic tricks improving hand function in hemiplegia, to dance helping people with Parkinson's disease to walk. This presentation will discuss recent research from psychobiology and epidemiology studies and give an overview of some of the major developments in this area of work, including the publication of a political report from the All Party Parliamentary Group report on Arts, Health and Wellbeing and the launch of the new National Culture Health and Wellbeing Alliance.

Daisy Fancourt is Senior Research Associate/Wellcome Research Fellow in the Psychobiology Group, Department of Behavioural Science and Health at UCL. Daisy studied at Oxford University and King's College London before completing her PhD in psychoneuroimmunology at UCL. She subsequently undertook postdoctoral work in the Centre for Performance Science (a partnership of the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London and the Royal College of Music) before returning to UCL in 2017. Alongside her research, she has worked for over 7 years in the NHS, including at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital managing arts and clinical innovations programmes, working alongside clinicians to devise interventions to improve patient experience and clinical outcomes. She has also worked as a consultant to a range of hospitals and Clinical Commissioning Groups on the integration of the arts within care pathways in primary, secondary and tertiary care. Daisy is a Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health and the Deputy Chair of their Special Interest Group on Arts and Health. She also established and chairs the International Arts Health Early Career Research Network. She holds honorary positions in the Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London and the Centre for Arts in Medicine at the University of Florida. Daisy is a BBC New Generation Thinker and a World Economic Forum Global Shaper and has received awards from the British Science Association, British Academy, British Federation of Women Graduates, American Psychosomatic Society, Royal Society for Public Health and NHS England.