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Review
. 2024 Jul 11:12:1414070.
doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1414070. eCollection 2024.

Is it premature to formulate recommendations for policy and practice, based on culture and health research? A robust critique of the CultureForHealth (2022) report

Mette Kaasgaard  1   2 , Katarzyna Grebosz-Haring  3   4 , Christina Davies  5 , George Musgrave  6 , Jahnusha Shriraam  7 , J Matt McCrary  8   9 , Stephen Clift  10   11
Affiliations
Review

Is it premature to formulate recommendations for policy and practice, based on culture and health research? A robust critique of the CultureForHealth (2022) report

Mette Kaasgaard et al. Front Public Health. .

Abstract

Introduction: Arts and health practice and research has expanded rapidly since the turn of the millennium. A World Health Organization scoping review of a large body of evidence claims positive health benefits from arts participation and makes recommendations for policy and implementation of arts for health initiatives. A more recent scoping review (CultureForHealth) also claims that current evidence is sufficient to form recommendations for policy and practice. However, scoping reviews of arts and health research-without critical appraisal of included studies-do not provide a sound basis for recommendations on the wider implantation of healthcare interventions.

Methods: We performed a detailed assessment of 18 Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) on arts-based interventions included in Section 1 of the CultureForHealth report using the Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal Tool for RCTs (2023).

Results: The 18 RCTs included demonstrated considerable risks of bias regarding internal and statistical conclusion validity. Moreover, the trials are substantially heterogeneous with respect to settings, health-issues, interventions, and outcomes, which limits their external validity, reliability, and generalisability.

Conclusions: The absence of a critical appraisal of studies included in the CultureForHealth report leads to an overinterpretation and overstatement of the health outcomes of arts-based interventions. As such, the CultureForHealth review is not a suitable foundation for policy recommendations, nor for formulating guidance on implementation of arts-based interventions for health.

Keywords: arts and health; culture; evidence; health policy; scoping reviews.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

References

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