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Our Creative Health Community brings together researchers from across ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº whose work focuses on health creation and understanding creative approaches to reducing health disparities.

Get involved | Meet our community leads | Our activities | Case StudiesÌý´¥ Podcasts and events

About us

Community-based approaches to public health are increasingly recognised as a key vehicle for tackling health inequalities. The UK’s new Office for Health Improvement and Disparities reports that with around 80% of a person’s long-term health dictated not by the care they receive but by the wider social determinants of health, tackling health inequity requires a coordinated and integrated approach across local, regional and national systems, and importantly communities. Asset-based approaches to health, including the expansion of social prescribing, offer new routes to connecting individuals with sources of support within their communities to address health prevention and health promotion.

The National Centre for Creative Health defines Creative Health as ‘creating the conditions and opportunities for arts, creativity and culture to be embedded in the health of the public’. Within our Community, we expand this to include all asset-based approaches to health including nature and the outdoors, the built environment, design and architecture, laws and beyond. We welcome anyone from biomedicine, the sciences (life, physical, population, social, historical), engineering, education, arts and humanities to join forces to explore how asset-based approaches to health can be harnessed to improve the health of the public.

¹û¶³Ó°Ôº is connected to a range of wider initiatives related to Creative Health and offers the world’s first and only MASc in Creative Health.ÌýRelated organisations include:

Get involved

Join our Creative Health Community Teams Site to receive regularÌýupdates on the latest creative healthÌýnews, events and funding opportunities that relate to the cross-disciplinary research taking place across ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº. Please note you must be a ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº researcher or student to sign-up as this is an internal network.

Dr Rochelle BurgessÌýis Associate Professor in Global Health and Deputy Director of the ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº Centre for Global Non-Communicable Diseases, at the Institute for Global Health. Rochelle is interested in the promotion of community approaches to health globally, and views communities as a route to understanding and responding to the political economy of poor health.Ìý

Dr Humera IqbalÌýis Associate Professor of Social and Cultural Psychology based at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, part of the ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº Social Research Institute.Ìý Humera studies young people and families particularly from migrant and minority groups, social representations, citizenship, including statelessness and identity.

Dr Karen MakÌýis a Research Fellow in Quantitative Social Science at the Institute of Epidemiology & Health. Karen’s research explores how arts and cultural engagement is associated with improvements in mental health and wellbeing and identifies the profile of engagers across the UK using theories from sociology, behavioural science, and geography.

Events

Upcoming events
to receive regularÌýupdates on the latest creative healthÌýevents.

Past events

• Art beyond data: capitalising on opportunities for advocacy and activism - May 2024
  This event gave attendees the chance to explore how to capitalise on opportunities for advocacy and activism, linked to the use of creative methods.
• Creative Health Research Spotlight Event - Jan 2024
  This event showcased the work of Dr Nasreen Majid (¹û¶³Ó°Ôº IOE), Dr Daniel Hayes (¹û¶³Ó°Ôº Social Biobehavioural Research Group), Dr Ranjita Dhital (¹û¶³Ó°Ôº Arts and Sciences), and Dr Dalia Iskander (¹û¶³Ó°Ôº Anthropology).
• ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº Creative Health Community Early Career Researcher EventÌý-ÌýOctober 2023Ìý
  Chaired by Dr Karen Mak (Creative Health Community ECR lead), this event broughtÌýtogether early careerÌýresearchers from across ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº working onÌýthe intersections between arts, creativity and community-based approaches to health to network and discuss opportunities for collaboration.
• Collective Creativity for health: A workshop with Artist in Residence Nora Wuttke - March 2023
  An interactive drawing workshop led by Artist in Residence, Nora Wuttke.
• ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº Health of the Public Creative Health Community Event - Monday 28 March 2022
  Following the successful launch of the Creative Health Community at the end of 2021, ¹û¶³Ó°Ôº Health of the Public hosted an event at the end of March 2022 to bring the community together in person.ÌýClick here to read the full post-event summary and speaker presentations.
• Creative Health Community Launch - Monday 22 November 2021
  to watch our launch event and to find out more about the community.