The impacts of art on health and wellbeing: systematic literature reviews

As part of the evaluation of the Sistema Scotland Big Noise programme in Raploch and Govanhill, three distinct systematic literature reviews to assess the current evidence on the role the arts can play in regeneration, grassroots positive social change and in improving the health and wellbeing of disadvantaged communities have been commissioned.

This paper synthesises the findings from the three systematic reviews (download below) and draw out the implications for policy and practice is also in production.

With a particular focus on the evidence required to inform the evaluation of Sistema, the systematic reviews consider evidence over a ten-year period from 2004 to 2014 and so provide an overview of very recent evidence, methodologies and commentary.

The three topics are:

The impact of art attendance and participation on health and wellbeing (PDF)

‘Arts and smarts’ – assessing the impact of arts participation on academic performance during the school years (PDF)

Community-based music programmes, and health and inequalities – the impact on children/adolescents and their families (PDF)