Artists can be the catalyst fueling long-term change.
Catalyzing community action. Process evaluation. Health impact financing strategies. It may seem radical to you that artists are becoming national thought leaders driving social innovation in community health, but for IDEAS xLab, these are the tools of our trade.
The health and community development sectors are our artists’ studio. We are social sculptors revealing new opportunities for driving civic engagement, policy change and expanding place-based opportunities for economic mobility. We are creating a new blueprint for a just, creative and healthy America. Why? Because existing structures and engrained hierarchies won’t get the job done alone.
Since we began our work in 2012, we’ve seen how culture shapes health… and that for sustainable change to take place, communities have to be in the driver’s seat.
Early on, we experienced first-hand the limitations in thinking about how to fund work at the intersection of arts/culture, health/wellbeing, and community development. And, how to evaluate it.
It was through seed funding from the NEA Our Town program, ArtPlace America, and the Educational Foundation of America, among others — that we were able prototype artist as corporate and civic innovator in Louisville, KY and Natchez, MS in 2014–2015.
One of our big ‘aha’ moments came when a woman in Natchez, Mississippi, told IDEAS xLab co-founder Theo Edmonds the story of her grandmother’s recipe card, handwritten, torn and tattered — the first ingredient was two cups of lard! For her, making the recipe was not just about putting food on the table. It was an act of connecting her to her roots, her heritage, to her identity. It was a celebration of her identity and her resiliency as a Black woman in the Deep South.
How can health sector leaders expect to create change by approaching people by their health deficits undergirded by the inherent message that a person’s own identity is their biggest stumbling block? Not such a great strategy if you are seeking to build trust and collaboration. Instead, what if we understood cultural heritage as something to appreciate. What if our inquiry focused on culture not as the problem, but as the catalyst for change?
It was early learnings like these, combined with our diverse backgrounds as artist+ (business, healthcare, social justice, etc.) that outlined the path forward.
We are making these philosophies actionable through Project HEAL, our cultural blueprint that activates artists as catalysts for creative, just, health communities.
And, over the past few months, we have had some exciting conversations around how artists are catalyzing the way we engage communities, approach outcomes, and think about funding.
Inspired by the City of Santa Monica’s Wellbeing Index, IDEAS xLab and partners including the Louisville Metro Office of Civic Innovation, recently hosted a Design Jam exploring how Project HEAL communities can utilize unique combinations of data sets and cultural assets to impact wellbeing by lifting up reasons for hope. Then, in turn, using data to turn hope into an actionable strategy that can be measured. In effect, helping to make a community’s own creativity investable.
The group was made-up of artists, researchers, community leaders, health-sector professionals and Project HEAL partners. Near the end of the day, one of the researchers noted that he thought we should have held the Design Jam in a community space, rather than a corporate office tower in downtown Louisville.
Organized by artists, we had a different take — which our fellow artists, including Sekou Coleman, a filmmaker from Asheville, NC, were quick to point out. As one artist asked, “When was the last time you were called by artists to a corporate headquarters to discuss utilizing data to impact health and wellbeing, with a focus on cultural integration and community leadership?”
These are the moments that remind me that we’re on the right track. That artists — like me, like my team members and those we work with — are reclaiming their seat at the table, rather than being an accent point at the end of a project.
And, it’s through innovative partnerships between sectors that we’re mining new territory — like conducting a Health Impact Assessment (HIA) on Project HEAL. The first HIA of its kind evaluating an arts/culture population health initiative.
This was done through a collaboration with the Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness, and the University of Louisville’s Commonwealth Institute of Kentucky (CIK).
In tandem with the release we organized a Roundtable focused on the HIA findings, co-hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (@SFFed).
“What Project HEAL is proposing is transformational,” said Ian Galloway of the SFFed. “These communities are investable opportunities with exponential potential.”
With Project HEAL expanding into a 7-site pilot in 2018, we talked about how we evaluate this type of transdisciplinary work, and explored opportunities for value-based funding models.
Both the Health Impact Assessment, and our work through the Center for Art + Health Innovation (our collaboration with CIK) are looking at the varying impacts of Project HEAL on communities and their health.
As the HIA outlines, Project HEAL may:
- Decrease social isolation and improve social cohesion and civic engagement.
- Create policy changes that positively impact health equity.
- Increase opportunities for building inclusive economies through social/cultural entrepreneurship.
- Increase opportunities for improving social emotional skills in youth.
- Improve wellbeing of communities experiencing chronic stress.
This impact is what we seek to demonstrate between 2018–2020 by evaluating Project HEAL across communities from urban to rural, of varying sizes, and demographic breakdowns.
As Bridget Kelly of Bridging Health & Community said during the HIA Roundtable, “There is a real need to take the reigns on a conversation around what constitutes an outcome. Otherwise, we are in a trap where the health sector gets to say ‘this is what’s valuable’… and it’s a vicious cycle that’s not very pro-innovation. The whole idea of bringing together creative production and health is to be a catalyst for innovation, and using what the communities know as the source for the solutions we are going to design.”
As we’ve seen, the shift is slow in thinking expansively about outcomes and evaluation that don’t fit neatly into a traditional logic model.
We were encouraged this fall, when the Humana Foundation stepped up to support Project HEAL after a series of conversations about the process and its potential impact. Having organizations like them as a learning partner with us as we evaluate the impact of an arts/culture framework on population health is crucial.
“The Humana Foundation is delighted to support Project HEAL’s important work addressing health disparities by using arts and other cultural programs as health interventions,” said Pattie Dale Tye, interim executive director of The Humana Foundation at the time the grant was announced. “Through this work, Project HEAL is increasing access to health services for individuals and families who need it most.”
And, this is just the beginning.
As IDEAS xLab team member and artist Hannah Drake says of Project HEAL, “If we can work together, we can win this.”
From working across sectors, to working alongside our fellow community members — building a culture of health takes a village, and artists can be the catalyst that fuels long-term change.
To learn more about Project HEAL visit ideasxlab.com.
