Overview

This course introduces the knowledge base of how community resources, including arts, culture and heritage activities can improve our physical and mental health and wellbeing.

In the last decade, researchers have increasingly focused on how community resources, or 'assets,' can protect and enhance health and wellbeing. These assets can be mobilised to improve individuals' health, known as an asset-based approach to health. Assets are wide-ranging. They are the resources, skills and knowledge of individuals, community and voluntary associations, public and private organisations, and physical environments. They include libraries, writing groups, archives, gardens, exercise classes, sporting events, volunteering and charitable groups, and community organisations such as youth services, trade unions, and religious groups. There are an estimated 1 million assets within communities in the UK, ranging from theatre societies to community gardens. 

Who this course is for

The course is open to all but is aimed at early careers researchers and community organisations with an interest in understanding how community resources, including arts, culture and heritage activities, can improve our physical and mental health and wellbeing.

Course content

This is an online self-guided course. It has 5 modules and takes approximately 4 hours to complete.

• Introduction to the course
• Module 1: The health benefits of engagement
• Module 2: The predictors of engagement
• Module 3: Active ingredients
• Module 4: Mechanisms of action
• Module 5: Modelling complexity

Teaching and structure

This is an online self-guided course. It includes readings, animations and online activities, alongside a worksheet to be completed independently. A reading list to further support your learning is also available.

Learning outcomes

Upon completion of the course, you will understand:

• What ‘health’ is and the evidence for the influence of arts activities on health outcomes.
• The barriers people face to accessing arts activities and how interventions and policies can be designed to help overcome them.
• The active ingredients or components of arts activities that may lead to health and wellbeing outcomes.
• The biological, social, psychological and behavioural mechanisms through which arts activities can affect mental and physical health and wellbeing.
• The contextual factors or moderators that influence how the arts affect our health.
• How researchers can adopt the principles of complexity science to examine the effect of arts activities on health

Further study

No preparation is required for this introductory course. However, if you would like to explore arts and health further, we recommend the following book: Arts in Health: Designing and researching interventions by Prof Daisy Fancourt. 

Further information

Further information about the course can be found in its introduction, which can be viewed after enrolling.

About the Social Biobehavioural Research Group

Our work investigates how social connections and behaviours impact people’s health. By conducting cutting-edge, cross disciplinary research, our aim is to determine how our health is influenced by both social ‘assets’ and ‘deficits’. These include social relationships, arts and culture, leisure, nature, and social prescribing (assets), as well as loneliness, isolation, and social restrictions (deficits).

We investigate how these factors affect individual and population health, the underlying ingredients and mechanisms, and how these effects vary across society. This then advances understanding of how policies and practice might evolve to improve population health.

Course team

Prof Daisy Fancourt

Daisy is Professor of Psychobiology & Epidemiology and Head of the Social Biobehavioural Research Group at UCL. Daisy studied at Oxford University and King’s College London before completing her PhD in psychoneuroimmunology at UCL and postdoctoral work at Imperial College London/RCM alongside working in the NHS. Her research focuses on the effects of social connections and behaviours on health, including social deficits (e.g. loneliness and social isolation) and social assets (e.g. community engagement, arts & cultural activities, and social prescribing). 

Course information last modified: 16 Feb 2024, 23:55