Creating Healthy Communities:
Mobilizing the Power of Arts & Culture
​for Public Health and Social Justice

Below:  (Left) Watch the video of presentations by the Clemmons Family Farm in Vermont (timestamp: 30:20 in the video), Take Care New York at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and IdeasXLab in Kentucky in the Creating Healthy Communities webinar on addressing racism through cross-sector collaboration. The webinar was moderated by Kresge Foundation and hosted by the University of Florida's Center for Arts in Medicine and Artplace America in February 2020. (Right) Watch the video Hakuna Lolote. There is Nothing That Can Break Us Apart, by Clemmons Family Farm collaborating artist KeruBo Webster. 
Publication: Creating Healthy Communities through Cross-Sector Collaboration

The Clemmons Family Farm is proud to be among the 12-member working group who wrote the recently-released "Creating Healthy Communities: Arts + Public Health in America", a publication that presents the views of more than 250 thought leaders and over 500 participants in a national field survey and focus groups conducted within the sectors of public health, arts and culture and community development.

The Clemmons Family Farm joined the University of Florida, Center for Arts in Medicine (lead); the University of Louisville; Tulane University School of Social Work; ArtPlace America; RAND Corporation; DiscoverME/RecoverME, Morgan State University; Arizona State University; Johns Hopkins University International Arts + Mind Lab; PolicyLink; and Harvard University to co-author this landmark publication.
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The publication frames the value of the arts and culture sector for advancing health and well-being in communities. It offers examples and recommendations for expanding cross-sector collaboration and innovation, asserting the value of arts and culture in increasing health, wellbeing, and equity in communities and in fostering transformative social change. You can find the paper online here: http://bit.ly/ArtsCultureHealthyCommunities
Our gratitude to UF Center for Arts in Medicine and ArtPlaceAmerica for spearheading this important work!
Watch the entire six-part webinar series that brings this publication to life on the University of Florida's Center for Arts in Medicine webpage here.

Read and download the  full publication below.​

The Creating Healthy Communities through Cross-sector Collaboration white paper frames the value of the arts and culture for advancing health and well-being in communities. It offers examples and recommendations for expanding cross-sector collaboration and innovation, with the following goals:
  • Advance collaboration among those working at the intersections of art and culture, public health, and community development
  • Stimulate upstream interventions—aimed at systems, cultures, and policies—that reduce barriers to health and well-being
  • Assert the value of arts and culture for increasing health, wellbeing, and equity in communities
  • Foster transformative social change that advances health and wellbeing 
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This paper is also intended to offer value and guidance to community development, arts and culture, and other allied health sectors by providing examples of impactful cross-sector collaborations that engage arts and culture to address five critical public health issues: collective trauma, racism, social isolation and exclusion, mental health, and chronic disease. These concrete examples inform the paper's recommendations and call to action, which assert the value of the arts and culture for community health transformation, and for advancing the culture of health being envisioned today. 

The white paper was drafted by a group of individuals working at the intersections of public health, arts and culture, and community development, brought together by the Creating Healthy Communities: Arts + Public Health in America initiative, with support from ArtPlace America and the Pabst Steinmetz Foundation. This paper is one of ten research reports that ArtPlace America has commissioned as part of its work to position arts and culture as a core sector of community planning and development.  

​Authors:
  • Jill Sonke, University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine
  • Tasha Golden, University of Louisville
  • Samantha Francois, Tulane University School of Social Work
  • Jamie Hand, ArtPlace America
  • Anita Chandra, RAND Corporation
  • Lydia Clemmons, Clemmons Family Farm
  • David Fakunle, DiscoverME/RecoverME, Morgan State University
  • Maria Rosario Jackson, Arizona State University
  • Susan Magsamen, Johns Hopkins University International Arts + Mind Lab
  • Victor Rubin, PolicyLink
  • Kelley Sams, University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine
  • Stacey Springs, Harvard University

With: Margery Pabst Steinmetz, Pabst Steinmetz Foundation
Published by: The University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine & ArtPlace America
With partnership and support from the Pabst Steinmetz Foundation

Learn more about the white paper at the University of Florida's Center for Arts in Medicine.