Launched in 2019, the NeuroArts Blueprint: The Science of Arts, Health and Well-Being is an initiative designed to strengthen, standardize, and propel the emerging field of neuroarts. Our commitment is to identify and share the robust empirical scientific evidence that demonstrates how art can be used to advance health and well-being—and to build on this growing body of translational research to develop arts-based solutions to pressing global problems.
Scientists, clinicians, educators, artists, technology pioneers, practitioners, policymakers, and others are already engaged in rigorous work at the intersection of arts and health, but there is not yet a platform for them to come together across their many disciplines to build a field.
Identifying the systems and brain mechanisms that respond to the arts is like finding a map to a hidden treasure.
The NeuroArts Blueprint is creating that platform to deepen the recognition that art is an accessible, affordable, and science-based tool to advance our collective health and well-being. Key components of our dynamic community-building process include:
- Convening an Advisory Board with some two dozen members—drawn from the disciplines of science, art, clinical practice, health policy, technology, business, and communication—to provide high-level strategic guidance.
- Commissioning reports to inform our deliberations. These reports will include a research scoping review; an examination of the current state of the neuroarts field; a survey to learn more about how professionals view the landscape; and an assessment of how other evidence-based scientific fields have been developed.
- Bringing experts, leaders, and creatives together in interdisciplinary meetings across the country and in at least one international setting to explore the research, practice, community development, policy, financing, and communications dimensions of building the neuroarts field.
- Site visits to non-traditional settings and venues to see art in action and gather evidence about the ability of well-designed programs to lessen the frequency and duration of hospital stays, deliver economic returns, and strengthen communities.
- Issuing a Blueprint report as a road map to propel the field forward. This guide to implementation will offer a coordinated plan for scaling, disseminating, and sustaining the practical applications of neuroarts and for promoting their value as a core part of any health-generating toolbox.