Jill Sonke

University of Florida | UF · Center for Arts in Medicine

Background: Arts in medicine programs have significant impacts on patients and staff in long-term care environments, but the literature lacks evidence of effectiveness on hospital units with shorter average lengths of stay. Methods: The qualitative study used individual structured interviews to assess the impacts of arts programming on job satisfac...

The arts have been shown to be an effective and efficient means for communicating health information to large audiences. The arts enhance emotional engagement with messages, and thus optimise social learning patterns and motivation to change behaviours. This article explores the roles and impacts of the arts in public health, including recent use o...

The arts in healthcare in the United States is a field emerged from grassroots beginnings in the mid-twentieth century. Through an overview of the field's development as well as consideration of practice, research, and educational structures, this paper summarizes the current state of the field in the United States. Practice is explored in the cont...

Arts and health is a growing discipline in the United States, with programme prevalence rising in both healthcare and community settings. Key areas of growth in the field include research, arts across the lifespan, military-based programmes, rural community-based programmes, and programmes dedicated to addressing public heath. Education and credent...

Within the continuum of arts and health practices, arts in healthcare has emerged as a profession over the past three decades following, and in relationship with, established professionalism in the creative arts therapies. Pioneering innovation in the field of arts in healthcare has led to the development of education, training, continuing educatio...

Arts-based practices are positively associated with the prevention and management of adolescent mental health, and community-based participatory research (CBPR) methods are shown to enhance equity in mental health interventions. This study sought to understand how CBPR approaches to research are used to assess arts-based interventions for adolescen...

This report is published by the Jameel Arts & Health Lab in collaboration with NYU Steinhardt, Harvard University, and the University of Florida’s Center for Arts in Medicine. It presents a summary of key learnings from the Arts and Health Caucus held in advance of Healing, Bridging, Thriving: A Summit on Arts and Culture in our Communities, co-ho...

Cross-sectional and some longitudinal evidence suggests doing hobbies can reduce substance use, but findings have been inconsistent, and whether associations differ across adolescence remains unclear. This study included 7454 Add Health participants (50% female, 77% White, age mean=14.95 and SD = 1.56). Participants were split into three groups, ac...

Arts and cultural strategies have increasingly been engaged by the public health sector to enhance community health and wellbeing, as well as to address the significant health risks posed by social isolation and loneliness. While increasing studies document relationships between arts participation, social cohesion, and wellbeing uniquely, few studi...

The significance of mental health inequities globally is illustrated by higher rates of anxiety and depression amongst racial and ethnic minority populations as well as individuals of lower socioeconomic status. The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated these pre-existing mental health inequities. With rising mental health concerns, arts engage...

Objectives. In recent years, increasing efforts have been made to apply arts- and culture-based strategies to public health concerns. Accumulating studies point to the value of these strategies for addressing social determinants of health in ways that center communities, cultures, and lived experiences. However, this work has lacked a common framew...

Leisure engagement has potential to slow health and functional decline in older age. However, the benefits of different leisure domains for different aspects of aging remains unclear. In 8771 older adults from the Health and Retirement Study (a longitudinal panel study), we measured engagement in physical, creative, cognitive, and community activit...

Objectives There is evidence to suggest that leisure engagement may influence self-perceptions of ageing, but disentangling potential bidirectionality in this relationship is challenging. A better understanding of the directionality of this association is essential for designing more effective interventions to promote healthy aging. We therefore te...

Objectives: In recent years, increasing efforts have been made to apply arts- and culture-based strategies to public health concerns. Accumulating studies point to the value of these strategies for addressing social determinants of health in ways that center communities, cultures, and lived experiences. However, this work has lacked a common framew...

Introduction: As a means for supporting a range of health and wellbeing goals, social prescribing programs have been implemented around the world. Reflecting a range of contexts, needs, innovation, and programing, a broad array of outcomes has been studied in relation to these programs. As interest in social prescribing grows, more targeted study o...

Collaboration between the arts and health sectors is gaining momentum. Artists are contributing significantly to public health efforts such as vaccine confidence campaigns. Artists and the arts are well positioned to contribute to the social conditions needed to build trust in the health sector. Health professionals, organizations, and institutions...

There is growing evidence for the impact of arts engagement on later life cognition. However, confounding by socioeconomic factors may have led to an overestimation of this association. We analyzed data from 4,344 older adults in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. We measured participatory (e.g. painting, making music, crafts) and receptive (e.g. co...

Introduction: Externalising behaviours during adolescence are associated with numerous long-term negative outcomes, although the majority of research is intervention-based as opposed to focused on risk reduction. Arts engagement has been associated with numerous beneficial factors linked to externalising behaviours, yet direct evidence linking them...

Background There is growing evidence for the direct and indirect health benefits of social, cultural and community engagement (SCCE) across cultures, including supporting healthy behaviours and improving quality of life. However, it remains unclear whether SCCE is associated with different types of healthcare utilisation. This study aimed to examin...

Rationale: Arts engagement is associated with prolonged longevity, but it remains unclear whether it is also associated with increases in the portion of people's lives for which they remain healthy. We investigated whether receptive and participatory arts engagement were associated with healthy aging two and four years later. Method: We included...

Arts participation has been linked to positive health outcomes around the globe. As more research is taking place on this topic, there is heightened need for definitions for the complex concepts involved. While significant work to define “arts participation” has taken place in the arts sector, less work has been undertaken for the purpose of resear...

Importance: There is growing evidence for the health benefits associated with social, cultural, and community engagement (SCCE), including for supporting healthy behaviors. However, health care utilization is an important health behavior that has not been investigated in association with SCCE. Objective: To examine the associations between SCCE...

Introduction We investigated whether changes in engagement in home-based creative activities were associated with changes in depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms and life satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic, aiming to replicate findings from the UK in a USA sample. Methods 3725 adults were included from the COVID-19 Social Study in the USA,...

Objectives: There is evidence to suggest that leisure engagement may influence self-perceptions of ageing, but disentangling potential bidirectionality in this relationship is challenging. A better understanding of the directionality of this association is essential for designing more effective interventions to promote healthy aging. We therefore t...

Leisure engagement has potential to slow decline in older age and limit increasing healthcare costs as the number of older adults increases, but the potential benefits of different domains of leisure activities on aging experiences remains unclear. We included 8,893 older adults (mean age=63.18) from the Health and Retirement Study, a nationally re...

Purpose Although arts engagement holds promise for reducing loneliness and enhancing social support, previous research has focussed on older adults. We investigated whether arts engagement was associated with loneliness and social support during adolescence. Methods We included 11,780 adolescents aged 11–21 years from the National Longitudinal Stu...

Unlabelled: There is growing evidence on the impact of arts engagement on flourishing. However, social gradients in arts engagement and flourishing may have led to an overestimation of this impact, and there is a lack of longitudinal research in young people. We aimed to test the longitudinal associations between arts engagement and flourishing in...

Background: There is increasing interest in the potential benefits of referring older adults to engage in community-based arts activities to enhance health. The arts have been found to have wide-ranging benefits for older adults including being associated with an increased lifespan. However, it remains unclear whether they are additionally associat...

Background There is growing evidence for the impact of arts engagement on flourishing. However, social gradients in arts engagement and flourishing may have led to an overestimation of this impact, and there is a lack of longitudinal research in young people. We aimed to test the longitudinal associations between arts engagement and flourishing in...

Introduction We investigated whether changes in engagement in home-based creative activities were associated with changes in depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and life satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic, aiming to replicate findings from the UK in a US sample.Methods 3,725 adults were included from the COVID-19 Social Study in the Unite...

Background There is mounting anecdotal and empirical evidence that gardening and art-making afford therapeutic benefits. Objectives This randomly controlled pilot study tested the hypothesis that participation in group-based indoor gardening or art-making activities for one hour twice a week for four weeks would provide quantifiably different ther...

There is growing evidence for the impact of arts engagement on later life cognition. However, confounding by socioeconomic factors may have led to an overestimation of this association. We analyzed data from 4,344 older adults in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. We measured participatory (e.g., painting, making music, crafts) and receptive (e.g.,...

Human movement classification and analysis are important in the research of health sciences and the arts. Laban movement analysis is an effective method to annotate human movement in dance that describes communication and expression. Technology-supported human movement analysis employs motion sensors, infrared cameras, and other wearable devices to...

Objectives: There is a social gradient in both arts engagement and wellbeing that may have led to an overestimation of the impact of arts engagement on wellbeing. We tested whether participation in community arts groups was associated with wellbeing after removing confounding by demographic, socioeconomic, and health-related factors. Methods: Using...

Arts and cultural engagement is a potential strategy for reducing or preventing reportedly antisocial or criminalized behaviors (those previously and problematically termed as “delinquent”) in adolescence. However, most research to date has focused on arts-based interventions and has not tested arts and cultural engagement in large population-based...

Introduction. Substance use (e.g., alcohol, marijuana, tobacco) is common during adolescence and may lead to a number of long-term negative outcomes (e.g., poor mental health). It is therefore important to explore factors that reduce the risk of engaging in these potentially harmful behaviours. Extracurricular activities (i.e., how people spend the...

Introduction: Substance use (e.g., alcohol, marijuana, tobacco) is common during adolescence and may lead to a number of long-term negative outcomes (e.g., poor mental health). It is therefore important to explore factors that reduce the risk of engaging in these potentially harmful behaviours. Extracurricular activities (i.e., how people spend the...

There is increasing interest today in how the arts contribute to individual and community wellbeing. This scoping review identified and examined ways in which the arts have been used to address wellbeing in communities in the United States. The review examined 44 publications, with combined study populations representing a total of 5,080 research p...

Background Receptive cultural engagement (e.g., attending theaters and museums) can reduce depression in older adults. However, whether specific participatory leisure activities are associated with lower rates of depression remains unknown. We aimed to test whether engagement in a diverse range of leisure activities, all of which could involve arti...

Arts engagement is a health-related behavior that may be influenced by social inequalities. While the COVID-19 pandemic provided new opportunities for some people to engage in the arts, it might have created barriers for others. We aimed to examine whether there was social patterning in home-based arts engagement during the pandemic in the United S...

Arts engagement is a health-related behavior that may be influenced by social inequalities. While the COVID-19 pandemic provided new opportunities for some people to engage in the arts, it might have created barriers for others. We aimed to examine whether there was social patterning in home-based arts engagement during the pandemic in the United S...

Introduction Arts and cultural engagement are associated with a range of mental and physical health benefits, including promoting heathy aging and lower incidence of age-related disabilities such as slower cognitive decline and slower progression of frailty. This suggests arts engagement constitutes health-promoting behaviour in older age. However,...

Reportedly antisocial or criminalized behaviors (RACBs; those previously and problematically termed as “delinquent”) in adolescence are important for health and wellbeing. We investigated whether arts and cultural engagement reduced RACBs in mid- to late adolescence. We used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (n...

Objective Although arts engagement holds promise for reducing loneliness and enhancing social support, previous research has focussed on older adults. We investigated whether arts engagement was associated with loneliness and social support during adolescence.Method We included 11,060 adolescents aged 11-21 years from the National Longitudinal Stud...

Background: Wellbeing plays an essential role in a complete and health community. Participatory arts interventions are popular to address wellbeing. Participatory drum circles can lead to social resilience, emotional completeness, and mental health benefits. The literature in the field of arts in health demonstrate the specific ways a drum circle m...

Introduction: Externalising behaviours during adolescence are associated with numerous long-term negative outcomes, although the majority of research is intervention-based as opposed to focused on risk reduction. Arts engagement has been associated with numerous beneficial factors linked to externalising behaviours, yet direct evidence linking them...

Background Engaging in the arts is a health-related behavior that may be influenced by social inequalities. While it is generally accepted that there is a social gradient in traditional arts and cultural activities, such as attending classical music performances and museums, previous studies of arts engagement in the US have not adequately investig...

There is a social gradient in both arts engagement and wellbeing which may have led to an overestimation of the impact of arts engagement on wellbeing in previous research. Using data from 12,111 older adults in the Health and Retirement Study (2014-2016), we tested whether participation in community arts groups was associated with concurrent wellb...

Introduction: Arts and cultural engagement are associated with a range of mental and physical health benefits, including promoting heathy aging and lower incidence of age-related disabilities such as slower cognitive decline and slower progression of frailty. This suggests arts engagement constitutes health-promoting behaviour in older age. However...

The arts—and the arts and culture sector—offer fertile ground for achieving a culture of health in the United States. The arts and artists are agents of change and can help enable this vision and also address the most critical public health issues we are contending with, including COVID-19 and racism. The arts provide means for engaging dialogue, i...

Study Objective. Suicide is a serious health problem that is shaped by a variety of social and mental health factors. A growing body of research connects the arts to positive health outcomes; however, no previous systematic reviews have examined the use of the arts in suicide prevention and survivorship. This review examined how the arts have been...

Objectives: Receptive cultural engagement, such as going to the theater and museums, has been shown to reduce depression in older adults. However, whether more active engagement in artistic and creative activities is associated with lower rates of depression remains unknown. We aimed to test whether active arts engagement was associated with concur...

Engaging in the arts is a health-related behavior that may be influenced by social inequalities. While it is generally accepted that there is a social gradient in arts participation, previous studies of arts engagement in the US have not used comprehensive measures of engagement and often focus on single demographic or socioeconomic predictors of e...

Three case studies of veterans are presented who received either art therapy, dance/movement therapy or music therapy via in-home, synchronous clinical video telehealth through a VA medical center in the southeastern United States. As the use of distance technology becomes more widely implemented within healthcare, it becomes increasingly important...

While dance programs for people with Parkinson’s disease (PD) have been developed globally over the past two decades, dance programs for people with multiple sclerosis (MS) are just emerging. This article introduces three dance for MS programs and a multi-site partnership that was developed to evaluate and advance a model for dance for MS programs....

Background: Previous work suggests mediating effects of music on acute pain processing. This quasi-experimental pilot study examined the effects of music on experimental pain sensitivity. Methods: Healthy adults (N = 40) completed quantitative sensory tests during three music conditions (silence, listening, and singing). Repeated Measures ANOVA...

Guided by the hypothesis that the arts can play a role in changing attitudes, beliefs, and health behaviors, the objectives of the study were to (1) overview artistic practices, interventions, and research being conducted at the intersection of the arts and health communication and (2) identify desired and observed outcomes and variables measured i...

Arts and humanities have central roles to play to transform the culture of care, wellbeing, and health. How we educate health care professionals and artists is shifting in response to global pressures, and a rapidly accelerating tech-fueled world. This chapter explores the intersections of arts, health, technology, education, and society.

The "Creating Healthy Communities through Cross-sector Collaboration" white paper presents the views of more than 250 thought leaders from the public health, arts and culture, and community development sectors who were convened in working groups in 2018 and 2019. Their voices are joined by over 500 participants in a national field survey and focus...

An urgent need exists for trained specialists to manage organizational policies and practices involving arts programs and activities in healthcare facilities. This article introduces the field of arts in health and argues for what is currently needed within the academic and professional field of arts management to advance this emerging arena of art...

A mapping project was conducted to document and describe arts in health programs in the state of Florida, USA. The project utilized a systematic process for identification, verification, analysis and mapping of programs through three primary methods: (1) systematic search; (2) verification; and (3) an online survey. The study identified and categor...

Objectives This study aimed to measure the effects of a dance training program on subjective and objective balance and gait measures in a person with Parkinson's disease. Design and Setting The participant was measured via clinical scales and biomechanical balance and gait analyses pre- and post- 16 weeks of dance participation at the University C...

Arts programs are increasingly recognized for their ability to enhance healthcare and promote health outcomes such as improved quality of life, increased motivation and reduced levels of depression and anxiety. This manuscript describes a creative arts therapy practice known as the Rural Veterans TeleRehabilitation Initiative Creative Arts Therapy...

Increased attention is being given to interprofessional collaboration in healthcare, which has been shown to improve patient satisfaction, patient safety, healthcare processes, and health outcomes. As the arts and artists are being more widely incorporated into healthcare settings throughout the world, professional artists are contributing to inter...

Background: There has been tremendous progress linking the arts to health over the past five decades in the United States. An academic discipline has been clearly established through the development of programs at accredited universities, a growing body of research and dedicated field journals. However, significant inconsistencies in the use of lan...

Issue statement: While there is tremendous growth in practices and programs that use the arts in support of health worldwide, there are significant inconsistencies in terminology used to reference the discipline. These inconsistencies are challenging for professionals within and outside of the field, and particularly so for educators. Inconsistent...

This qualitative interview study brings the voices of 27 public health leaders, health communication experts, and artists who work in public health in Uganda together to articulate the principles and practices that make the country a shining example of effective, evidence-based use of the arts for health communication. The specific aim of the study...

Although there is relatively little published, or even written, regarding the use of the arts for healing in Uganda, oral history, long-standing cultural practices, and works of art themselves confirm that the arts have been used in health practices since at least the pre-colonial era. Indeed, the arts have been integral to healing practices throug...

Throughout the world, healthcare facilities of all kinds are engaging the performing arts as a means of making healthcare environments more welcoming and uplifting (State of the Field Committee, 2009). Performances take place in public lobbies and waiting areas as well as in more intimate clinical areas, such as family rooms, hallways, and patient...

The arts have long been used to engage, inform, and influence people and populations. Arts-­‐based health promotion has its roots in traditional cultures where storytelling, drama, and music are primary means for enforcing belief systems that guide behavior. In many low-­‐resource regions, including those affected by Ebola today, the arts are indig...

In this issue of CultureWork, Jill Sonke, director of the Center for Arts in Medicine at the University of Florida (http://www.arts.ufl.edu/cam/) and past president of the Global Alliance for Arts and Health, offers an advisory to arts practitioners on the quickly growing professional field of arts in healthcare management. Patricia Dewey, chair of...

While music and other art forms have long been associated with health promotion, their place in health practices and the specific constructs that effect healing and wellness have been difficult to define. This guest editorial discusses the arts, and music in particular, in the contexts of traditional cultures and contemporary biomedicine, psychothe...