Gainesville Writing Retreat, March 17 - 22, 2019
by invitation 

Hosted by the University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine, in partnership with ArtPlace America with support from the Pabst Charitable Trust.

This program is a part of the  Creating Healthy Communities Arts + Public Health in America  initiative.
 

Program Brief

Over the past several decades, evidence has mounted to demonstrate that the arts have positive and measurable impacts on individual and community health. Since 2004, arts programs have been documented at approximately half of accredited healthcare institutions in the United States. This prevalence has led to the development of a recognized professional field, as well as to the development of an academic discipline that supports education and research in the field. As a result, healthcare systems widely embrace and utilize the arts as a means for enhancing health outcomes and healthcare systems. 

Today, as our national health system struggles to meet the needs of larger and older populations, a heightened emphasis on disease prevention, wellness, placemaking and community-level health has emerged. Concurrently, creative placemaking initiatives across the United States have demonstrated that the arts are a powerful means for strengthening the social and physical environments in communities; yet the public health sector has not yet fully embraced creative placemaking, or the arts in general, as resources for addressing the national public health agenda. Over the past several decades, evidence has mounted to demonstrate that the arts have positive and measurable impacts on individual and community health, yet their applications are under-investigated and inconsistently recognized in the public health sector. As a result, the arts remain a readily available, yet highly underutilized resource in public health. 

It’s time to join together to shape the future! This working group will focus on policy change and advancement in relation to the use of the arts in community health and community-building initiatives.

This program also took place alongside the "Staging Wellness: Live Performance and Public Health" week-long festival.