What is the Role of Art in “Health”?

Let’s start with another question: What is well-being? 

If we assume it’s more than just the absence of suffering, what is it? 

(Psst. Take a moment to answer for yourself. I’ll wait!)

…

I pose this question in talks around the world—with artists, students, healthcare providers, youth, researchers, educators, anyone. And the answers are fascinating; maybe some will resonate with you:

Examples

Some folx say well-being comes from a sense of connection and belonging. Others mention a sense of meaning or purpose.
Still others define it as being able to pursue interests, or being part of something larger than themselves—like collective traditions, rituals, celebrations, narratives, creative pursuits.
Some people mention experiences with art, music, nature, faith.
Others say well-being means having resources for when life is difficult—including relational resources, and a sense of personal worth and hope. 

As varied as definitions are, they have something in common: They fall into the very general category of arts and culture.

To be honest, this isn’t usually what people expect when I first pose the question!

But once we move beyond “absence of suffering,” people dig into what they actually think it means to be well, to thrive. And as it turns out, well-being has to do with culture, with collective experiences, with our means of expressing and sharing our lives, of honoring what matters to us. In a broad sense, that’s arts and culture.

Okay, so… What should we do with this information?
Great question. To answer it, let’s step back a bit.

Definitions

Did you know that “well-being” is part of the core definition of health? 

In 1946, World Health Organization (WHO) defined health to be “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” 

There are two aspects to this definition: the absence of disease or infirmity, and the presence of complete wellbeing. (Also, can we pause to appreciate that high bar? Complete well-being! Whew.)

That definition is over 75 years old now. Yet all these years later, most conversations around “health”—and most resources and practices related to health—focus on the absence of disease or infirmity. 

Think about it. If someone were to ask, “Are you healthy today?”, many of us would come up with our answer by thinking through questions like, Am I NOT sick? Am I NOT in pain? Am I NOT [fill in the blank]? 

We tend to view “health” as the state of being that exists when we avoid conditions or situations we don’t want.

And obviously, the absence of disease and infirmity is important! We can and must reduce preventable illness and death. There’s so much more we should be doing for this half of health!

But. We also cannot ignore the other half of health: which is complete wellbeing. The two halves work together.

The well-being half of health asks not what we want to get rid of, but what we want and need our lives to include. It’s about what’s here.

What is it that humans need in order to experience “complete physical, mental and social well-being”? What do humans need in order to thrive? What makes us want to be alive?

Assuming it’s more than just the absence of suffering, what is well-being?

Why It Matters

In posing these questions, I’m not just messing with semantics. As a society, the way we define health determines how we address it. Our definitions of health determine what we consider to be worth our collective time, energy, resources, tax dollars, spaces, and places. 

If we think health is all about what we need to reduce, then that’s where our resources will go. If we think it’s (also) about what’s here—about what we have to live for—we’ll make a different set of decisions.

In other words, the definition of health that we accept and prioritize has a massive impact on our collective health.

Think of it this way: If, as a society, we make decisions with a focus on human thriving, we’ll automatically reduce many of the things that cause us to suffer. (Humans can’t thrive without housing, healthcare, nutritious food, safety, etc.)

But if we focus only on the things that cause humans to suffer, we may never get around to the things that help us thrive.

(One example: Designing a world in which humans can pursue their interests—which is part of well-being—requires ensuring their safety from harm, hunger, etc. The opposite is not true.) 

The concept of health requires access to the resources and experiences that humans need to be completely well. 

Arts and Culture, Y’all

As we saw in the many definitions of “well-being” above, the resources and experiences that humans need to be well involve a lot of arts and culture.

This doesn’t (just) mean that humans should paint or dance or sing or visit museums. (Those are great activities, but they’re a small aspect of what I mean by the phrase “arts and culture.”)

Rather, humans link “well-being” with broad human needs like being able to connect and make meaning. With creating, celebrating, honoring, memorializing. They link being well with being able to express and share, to provoke and imagine. To have fun, experience beauty, be moved, feel part-of.

There are a million ways human do these things, but generally speaking, those “ways” are cultural experiences. Many are arts-based experiences.

In other words, we can’t create the presence of “complete well-being” without arts and culture.

More to Explore

Embracing absence and presence is a powerful way to reimagine and expand the intersection of “arts and health.”

In most conversations about art’s impacts on health, we hear a lot about how the arts can help reduce symptoms, alleviate pain, shorten healing times, etc. Which is all so valuable. Art’s ability to support healing in this way is deeply important, and it merits more research, practice, and support!

That said, these benefits fall into the absence part of health. They’re a way of asking, “How can arts and culture help reduce what we don’t want?”

And as important as that is, there’s more to explore when it comes to how arts and culture affect human health.

Arts and culture don’t simply give us additional ways to achieve the conventional, limited, one-half definition of health. They have a unique ability to support the presence of well-being.

Where we go from Here

We all get to choose the definition of health we want to apply to our work and our lives. And when we compare society’s common definitions to the WHO’s 1946 description, it’s clear we’ve been thinking small.

I want to see a return to the full definition of health, recognizing the role of arts and culture in that full, complicated, holistic work.

I want to see our society and our systems re-honor and re-integrate well-being so we can build a fuller, more human(e) approach to health. We can’t get there without meaning, connection, movement, expression, interest, beauty, relationships, hope, story, belonging. Culture and arts. 

It’s not just about what’s absent. What’s here?

You can read more about moving from Absence to Presence in my article for Grantmakers in the Arts.