There is now considerable scientific and medical evidence that visiting museums (and other forms of cultural participation) has such a powerful impact on people’s wellbeing that they live longer as a result.
This evidence is distinct from the well-established findings on the benefits for health of art therapy and participation in creative activities, because it points to the fact that general museum visiting has a measurable health impact.
So what does the research tell us? The first study by Lars Olov Bygren was published in 1996. It found that: “attendance at cultural events may have a positive influence on survival” and recommended further research.
One such large-scale study reported in 2000. It aimed to narrow the focus to “ascertain the possible influence of attending various kinds of cultural events or visiting cultural institutions as a determinant of survival”.
Over 10,000 individuals were interviewed and followed up and the study was controlled for factors such as age, sex, income and long-term disease. It found “a higher mortality risk for those people who rarely visited the cinema, concerts, museums, or exhibitions compared with those visiting them most often”.
The report concluded that attendance at certain kinds of cultural events “may have a beneficial effect on longevity”.
Last year a large-scale controlled study by Bygren and Sven-Erik Johansson reported on a randomly selected group of over 9,000 Swedish cancer-free adults that aimed to determine whether attendance at cultural events or venues made a difference to cancer-related mortality.
The report found that death from cancer was 3.23 times more likely among rare attendees and 2.92 times more likely among moderate attendees. The researchers concluded that the results, if replicated, “imply that promoting attendance at cultural events could lead to improved urban population health”.
But perhaps the benefit is not cultural and, despite all the controls, simply the result of the social interaction which often accompanies cultural engagement?
Apart from the fact that museums are one of the few cultural forms where attendance on one’s own is socially validated and moderately prevalent (on average about 25 per cent of visits are solitary), there is evidence that even solitary engagement makes a real difference.
In Sweden, research has progressed to a randomised controlled trial, the gold standard in medical research. Over 100 health service workers volunteered to take part in the study. Fifty-one were assigned to engage in an arts experience of their choice once a week for eight weeks, while the remaining 50 did nothing.
Physical health improved in the intervention group and decreased among controls. The researchers wrote: “Fine arts stimulations improved perceived physical health, social functioning and vitality.”
While researchers are cautious about generalising the findings of even the largest-scale studies, taken together this body of research amounts to convincing evidence by medical and public health researchers that cultural participation provides a stimulus to human beings that has an impact on their wellbeing to such a degree that it prolongs their lives.
At a common-sense level, these findings are not surprising. Why would people make such a huge investment of energy and creativity in creating cultural forms and in experiencing them if they did not have a powerful effect? Culture is engrossing because it is the medium through which people confer meaning on life.
Here again it is important to be realistic. People rank cultural activities as less important than close personal relationships and a rewarding job. But such rankings are abstractions; people need to have somewhere to go with their loved ones; they need meaningful leisure opportunities.
Museums and other forms of culture make an essential contribution to the quality of life, and should form an integral part of public health policy.
There is increasing awareness that government solutions to social problems fail because of unintended consequences arising out of complexity: the importance of holistic approaches is clear.
There is a strong ethical dimension implicit in this research. If engagement with culture enriches people’s experience to the degree that it creates healthier lives, then the issue of access is critical.
Far from being a matter of consumer choice unrelated to issues of inequality and social justice, if cultural participation is indeed a matter of life and death, then the obligation on museums to provide access on a basis that is fair is axiomatic.
The obligation to people whose background does not include the cultural capital required to begin the engagement with formal culture is also clear: this is a key justification for public funding.
Mark O’Neill is director of research at Culture and Sport Glasgow
Links
A full version of this article with references is at www.csglasgow.org/culturalparticipationandhealth
Healing Places, a Museums Association one-day conference, is on 12 March. Click here for more details.
