Abstract
COVID-19 has laid bare and compounded the systemic inequities in healthcare that have plagued our nation for centuries, thus exposing an awful truth about which public health researchers and clinicians have repeatedly warned: Race is a predeterminant of health. Decades of empirical research in the health sciences confirms that participation in the arts, ranging from music, dance, and theatre to visual arts and creative writing can help to reduce adverse physiological and psychological outcomes, including those most prevalent and harmful for minoritized individuals and communities. This presentation highlights an ongoing longitudinal study investigating how and why inclusive participation in the arts constitutes a critical public health intervention on both structural racism and its predictive negative health outcomes. Our interdisciplinary team of artists and art, law, sociology, and public health faculty and students has generated needed knowledge on the history and diversity of Black and Latinx art in Boston and the interrelated economic, environmental, and health challenges facing BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) artists and the neighborhoods in which they live and work. This foundational knowledge will support the next research phase: a public health intervention to extend arts participation to underserved BIPOC teenagers, so that they are empowered to locate, chronicle, and contend with systemic inequities, and to build protective health factors so that they, and their communities, can thrive. Our study concludes with policy recommendations positioning the arts within the purview of public health and just governance structures, in the City of Boston and beyond.
Presenters
Rebekah MooreAssistant Professor, Graduate Program Coordinator, Music, Northeastern University, Massachusetts, United States Dee Williams
Student, Masters of Fine Arts, Northeastern University, Massachusetts, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
The Arts in Social, Political, and Community Life
KEYWORDS
Public Health, Urban Studies, Race, Social Justice, Community-engaged Research
