What a Major WHO Review Found About Art and Wellbeing
A sweeping review of over 3,000 studies looked at how activities like music, dance, and creative writing relate to health. The picture that emerged is broad but genuinely evidence-based.
Study title: What a Major WHO Review Found About Art and Wellbeing — Fancourt, D., & Finn, S., on behalf of the WHO Regional Office for Europe, WHO Regional Office for Europe, Health Evidence Network synthesis report 67, 2019
- Study type
- Systematic review
- Population
- Global evidence base of over 3,000 studies (around 900 examined in detail) on arts engagement and health outcomes across the life course
- Published
- 2019
- Evidence confidence
- Moderate confidence
The short version
A major WHO review of thousands of studies found regular arts participation is broadly associated with better mental and physical wellbeing, though evidence quality varies by art form.
Why it matters
Taken together, engaging with creative or artistic activity — as a participant, not necessarily as a skilled practitioner — is plausibly linked with better mental and physical wellbeing across many different populations and settings, though the review can't tell us how much art, of what kind, does the most.
01
The question
02
How it was studied
03
What they found
04
Limitations
05
What it may mean
In real life
The review's breadth is itself the useful message: it doesn't matter much whether the creative outlet is a choir, a sketchbook, or an amateur drama group — the common ingredient across benefiting studies was regular, voluntary participation.
Try this
Pick one small creative activity you've dropped — even ten minutes of drawing, singing along to music, or free writing — and put it back on your calendar once this week, without any goal attached to it.
Evidence confidence
Moderate confidence
The sheer volume and consistency of findings across a huge evidence base is reassuring, but most underlying studies are observational, so this supports a broad association rather than a precise causal claim.
Source
Fancourt, D., & Finn, S., on behalf of the WHO Regional Office for Europe (2019). What a Major WHO Review Found About Art and Wellbeing. WHO Regional Office for Europe, Health Evidence Network synthesis report 67.
Not peer-reviewed · Free full text available · Last reviewed 2026-08-14
Read the original research →One study isn't the whole storyOne study gives us a piece of the picture. Selfey looks for patterns across the broader evidence rather than treating a single finding as a rule.
Selfey research briefs are educational summaries, not medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Research describes patterns across groups; it cannot tell you what is right for your situation.
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