Research & Stats

Our Program’s Impact

≈ 40+ jobs generated for creative professionals in Ventura County

After just 20 minutes of trauma-informed arts activities, participants ages 16–25:

  • 100% significant reduction in anxiety  

  • 57.1% feeling extremely inspired

  • 28.6% increased happiness

  • 14.3% reductions in distress

*Focus group insights (2025)

Insights From Around the World


Mental & Physical Health Benefits of Arts & Culture

  • Arts engagement improves health & wellbeing across the lifespan. (1, 2, 3)

  • Weekly arts participation boosts flourishing, social belonging, & mental health for transitional age youth. (4)

  • 92.6% of Americans agree that arts improve wellbeing. (5)

  • Creativity combats loneliness & social isolation. (6, 7)

  • Arts participation can reduce cortisol, blood pressure, & heart rate. (8)

  • Arts engagement supports your mental health. (9)

  • Singing, making music, & other creative activities can decrease anxiety & depression (3, 7)

  • Engaging in the arts can address social determinants of health. (10)

  • Dance programs can improve quality of life for people with physical health conditions (ex: Parkinson’s)(11) and help people with Autism Spectrum Disorder. (12)

  • Digital arts remove physical barriers, allowing people to participate from home. (8)

  • Enhanced self-control and decreased antisocial or criminalized behaviors in adolescents ages 11–21. (14)

  • For early adolescents (aged 11-14), more frequent hobby engagement was associated with lower odds of binge drinking, marijuana, and tobacco use. (1)

  • Mental Health and Emotion Regulation in Youth: Artistic creative activities, including group dance, can help young people (16-24 years old) regulate emotions, alleviate feelings of depression and distress, and support the development of self-concept, self-esteem, self-efficacy, and self-expression. (7)

  • Lower Depression: "People who engage in arts and culture have lower incidence of depression during adulthood" (17)


Economic & Community Impact

  • $2.40 ROI for every $1 invested on music engagement (13)

  • Economic value of music engagement in dementia care reaches $11.9 billion annually. (21)

  • £8 Billion Annual Value in UK: This includes health and social savings from improved health and wellbeing, and wider societal benefits from improved productivity. (15)

  • £1,000 Annual Individual Benefit from Cultural Engagement: An individual adult who engages with culture and heritage every few months or more (e.g., visiting a museum, gallery, or concert) experiences health and wellbeing benefits worth around £1,000 per year. (15)

  • Increased Inpatient Costs from Decreased Engagement: Longitudinally, compared with consistent engagement, decreased engagement or consistent nonparticipation in SCCE was associated with longer hospital stays (IRRs of 1.29 and 1.32, respectively) over a 6-year follow-up, indicating increased costs when engagement declines. This highlights the importance of maintaining SCCE to avoid adverse health outcomes and associated costs. (16)

  • Arts participation is strongly associated with a positive personal quality of life and is recognized as a factor that improves wellbeing at the community level. (18)

  • A national sample in the US found 96.2% of people agree arts participation improves community wellbeing. (5)

Social Prescribing + Arts on Prescription

  • Social prescribing (SP) demonstrates relevance to over 300 health and health system outcomes, with a mapping review identifying 347 unique outcomes across 13 countries. These outcomes are categorized into 278 unique patient-level outcomes (including mental health, lifestyle and behavior, patient/user experience, relationships and social connection, physical health, community engagement and belonging, and wellbeing) and 69 unique system-level outcomes (such as healthcare and service utilization, financial/economic impacts, and workforce implications). Mental health represents the largest category of patient outcomes, with 61 unique findings. (19)

  • Definition and Systemic Role in Healthcare: Social prescribing is formally defined as a systems-level approach that enables healthcare providers to refer patients to non-clinical community services, including arts and cultural activities. The goal is to improve psychological and social well-being and address underlying causes of patients' health issues (14). This approach is increasingly recognized as a key component of national healthcare strategies, such as the NHS Long Term Plan in the UK, aimed at expanding personalized care and addressing social factors contributing to poor physical and mental health (15).

  • Demonstrated Benefits for Adolescents and Transitional Age Youth: Preliminary studies have shown positive outcomes for adolescents, including improvements in mental health, the development of social networks, reductions in loneliness, and decreased feelings of stigma. These programs are seen as a promising strategy for enhancing wellbeing and are being further explored for young people identified as being at risk for developing reportedly antisocial or criminalized behaviors. (14)

    1. Bone, JK & Fancourt, D. 2022. Arts, Culture & the Brain: A literature review and new epidemiological analyses. London: Arts Council England.

    2. Bone, J. K., Fancourt, D., Sonke, J. K., Fluharty, M. E., Cohen, R., Lee, J. B., Kolenic, A. J., Radunovich, H., & Bu, F. (2023). Creative leisure activities, mental health and well-being during 5 months of the COVID-19 pandemic: A fixed effects analysis of data from 3725 US adults. J Epidemiol Community Health, 77(5), 293–297. https://doi.org/10.1136/jech-2022-219653

    3. Fancourt D, Bone JK, Bu F, Mak HW, Bradbury A. The Impact of Arts and Cultural Engagement on Population Health: Findings from Major Cohort Studies in the UK and USA 2017 – 2022. London: UCL; 2023 March. 

    4. Bone, J. K., Bu, F., Sonke, J. K., & Fancourt, D. (2022). Longitudinal Associations Between Arts Engagement and Flourishing in Young Adults: A Fixed Effects Analysis of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Affective Science, 4(1), 131–142. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42761-022-00133-6

    5. One Nation/One Project (2025). Arts for EveryBody: The One Nation/ One Project Impact Report. New York: One Nation/ One Project. www.artsforeverybody.org/arthealth-research

    6. Sonke, J., Pesata, V., Colverson, A., Morgan-Daniel, J., Rodriguez, A. K., Carroll, G. D., Burch, S., Abraham, A., Akram, S., Marjani, S., Belden, C., & Karim, H. (2025). Relationships between arts participation, social cohesion, and well-being: An integrative review of evidence. Frontiers in Public Health, 13.https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2025.1589693

    7. Finn, S., Wright, L. H. V., Mak, H. W., Åström, E., Nicholls, L., Dingle, G. A., & Warran, K. (2023). Expanding the social cure: A mixed-methods approach exploring the role of online group dance as support for young people (aged 16–24) living with anxiety. Frontiers in Psychology, 14.https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1258967

    8. Bone JK, Wan Mak H, Sonke JK, et al. Who Engaged in Home-Based Arts Activities During the COVID-19 Pandemic? A Cross-Sectional Analysis of Data From 4,731 Adults in the United States. Health Promotion Practice. 2022;25(2):244-253. doi:10.1177/15248399221119806

    9. Rodriguez, A. K., Akram, S., Colverson, A. J., Hack, G., Golden, T. L., & Sonke, J. (2023). Arts Engagement as a Health Behavior: An Opportunity to Address Mental Health Inequities. Community health equity research & policy, 2752535X231175072. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/2752535X231175072

    10. Gordon-Nesbitt, R., & Howarth, A. (2019). The arts and the social determinants of health: findings from an inquiry conducted by the United Kingdom All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing. Arts & Health, 12(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/17533015.2019.1567563

    11. Sonke, J., Golden, T., Francois, S., Hand, J., Chandra, A., Clemmons, L., Fakunle, D., Jackson, M.R., Magsamen, S., Rubin, V., Sams, K., Springs, S. (2019). Creating Healthy Communities through Cross-Sector Collaboration [White paper]. University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine / ArtPlace America.

    12. Koch, S. C., Mehl, L., Sobanski, E., Sieber, M., & Fuchs, T. (2014). Fixing the mirrors: A feasibility study of the effects of dance movement therapy on young adults with autism spectrum disorder. Autism, 19(3), 338-350.https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361314522353 (Original work published 2015)

    13. Aspen Institute. (2024). New NeuroArts Blueprint Analysis Finds Strong Return on Investment from Music Engagement. https://www.aspeninstitute.org/news/neuroarts-blueprint-analysis-2025/

    14. Bone, J.K., Bu, F., Fluharty, M.E. et al. Arts and Cultural Engagement, Reportedly Antisocial or Criminalized Behaviors, and Potential Mediators in Two Longitudinal Cohorts of Adolescents. J Youth Adolescence51, 1463–1482 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-022-01591-8

    15. Frontier Economics. (2024, November 12). Culture and Heritage Capital: Monetising the impact of culture and heritage on health and wellbeing (Report for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport). UK: Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Retrieved from https://www.frontier-economics.com/media/2lbntjpz/monetising-the-impact-of-culture-and-heritage-on-health-and-wellbeing.pdf

    16. Gao Q, Bone JK, Bu F, Paul E, Sonke JK, Fancourt D. Associations of Social, Cultural, and Community Engagement With Health Care Utilization in the US Health and Retirement Study. JAMA Netw Open. 2023;6(4):e236636. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.6636

    17. The Social Biobehavioural Research Group. (2022). Arts, society and public health: an exploration of the major UK cohort studies. https://sbbresearch.org/projects/arts-society-and-public-health-an-exploration-of-the-major-uk-cohort-studies-2/

    18. Pesata, V., Colverson, A., Sonke, J., Morgan-Daniel, J., Schaefer, N., Sams, K., Carrion, F. M., & Hanson, S. (2022). Engaging the Arts for Wellbeing in the United States of America: A Scoping Review. Frontiers in psychology, 12, 791773. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.791773

    19. Sonke, J., Manhas, N., Belden, C., Morgan-Daniel, J., Akram, S., Marjani, S., Oduntan, O., Hammond, G. P., Martinez, G., Carroll, G., Rodriguez, A., Burch, S., Colverson, A., Pesata, V., & Fancourt, D. (2023). Social prescribing outcomes: a mapping review of the evidence from 13 countries to identify key common outcomes. Frontiers in Medicine, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2023.1266429

    20. Fancourt, D. & Bradbury, A. (2022, December 21). Investing in the arts can improve population health. https://www.creativityculturecapital.org/blog/2022/12/21/investing-in-the-arts-can-improve-population-health/

    21. Neuro Arts Blueprint Initiative. (2025). Alzheimer’s Disease & music engagement: Quality of life economic impact analysis. Retrieved from https://www.aarp.org/content/dam/aarp/health/brain-health-action/2025/06/NeuroArts%20Blueprint%20Initiative%20-%20Final%20Deloitte%20Study%20-%20May%202025.pdf