Creative Health Research Round Up 2025

Image Credit: Camilla Greenwell © A Dance in Cancer Care Session by Move Dance Feel.

The Creative Health Research Round-Up 2025 has been produced by the National Centre for Creative Health (NCCH) in partnership with the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH).

Designed to make creative health evidence both prominent and more accessible, it features a vast range of strategic documentation, evidence and research.

The round up has been broken down into sub-headings of:

• Creative Methodology
• Creative Health Communication and Literacy
• Co-Production, Co-Design, Co-Creation, Co-Curation, Co-Coding, Participatory Arts, and PPI
• Equity, Accessibility, Cultural Relevance, and Lived Experience Insight
• Mental Health and Wellbeing
• Creative Ageing
• Maternity, Perinatal Wellbeing, and New Family Connection
• Children and Young People
• Nature and Art
• Toolkits, Frameworks, Scales, and Guides
• Strategy, Policy and Eco-Systems

Looking across this work, some clear trends emerge. There is a strong emphasis on working with people and communities, and on addressing inequality and exclusion. Mental health and wellbeing — including stress, anxiety, depression, burnout, confidence, and emotional resilience — are a major focus across many projects.

Practical resources, such as economic evidence, toolkits, and sector reports, are also evident, suggesting the field is becoming more confident and established.

Of particular note for Norfolk & Suffolk are the inclusion of  Noise Solution’s Digital, Narrative-Driven A.I. Model for Measuring while Improving Youth Well-Being and the Community Culture Club Evaluation report produced by Holly Sandiford and the Museum of Norwich.

However, in an emerging cross-sector field, gaps remain, notably using creative activity to gather data and generate knowledge. Aligning with wider public health priorities — such as smoking cessation and then documenting how interventions respond to need. A vital area of need, is how this information can be understood by the cross-sector creative health workforce and integrated into training pathways and continuing professional development (CPD). This has been identified as a key pathway for Norfolk & Suffolk and is being addressed in the forthcoming Arts Council England, Place Based Partnership Application (funding permitting).

Finally, very few outputs explicitly explore the limits of creative health, such as where it is does not reach the expected outcomes, where traditional interventions are necessary supplements, or the conditions under which creative health is at risk of failure. My feeling is that as we have been striving for legitimacy for so long, highlighting any shortcomings at this point, would have set us back against more normalised mainstream medical interventions. However, this is work that needs to be done, in the longer term, if we are to authentically advocate against the medical models of interventions.

I would highly advise reading the entire document, however, if you are short of time, zoning in on your area of need/interest, is a great starting point.  I myself, will be using the round up as an ongoing source of reference, both for my own knowledge, but equally to signpost others when the question of ‘Where’s the evidence?‘ is raised in conversation!

You can read more about Claire’s role as Creative Health & Equity Lead on the Creative Health and Wellbeing Alliance page

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