The Economic Impact of the Arts on the Health and Wellbeing of Children and Young People: A Systematic Review (ABSTRACT ONLY)

Background: Demand for services to improve health and wellbeing is rising among children and young people, driven by increasing health complaints. Arts engagement is effective across multiple health outcomes and used in public health as a preventive intervention, however the economic benefits from the arts are rarely reported. We aimed to systematically review evidence on the economic impacts of the arts on the health and wellbeing of children and young people and to assess reporting quality.

Methods: Literature published after January 2005 was identified through searches of CINAHL, Embase.com, MEDLINE, PsycInfo, Web of Science Core Collection, Google, Google Scholar, and Semantic Scholar. Articles were screened by three independent reviewers against eligibility criteria. Studies were included if at least 80% of the population were between ages 5 – 24, involved a recognised arts modality that was not combined with non-arts activities, and reported economic outcomes. Checklists specific to study designs were completed to assess reporting quality. Findings were grouped by arts modality and synthesised through a narrative approach. We used the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses 2020 guideline.

Results: Searches produced 11,610 articles, with 14 meeting the inclusion criteria. There was substantial heterogeneity in study designs, intervention details, outcomes, and valuation methods. Benefits from arts programmes outweighed investment, evidenced through economic modelling (£122 million – £800 million society-wide impacts), cost-utility analysis (95% probability of cost-effectiveness using $50,000 willingness-to-pay threshold), benefit-cost ratios (returning 5.89 – 32 per monetary unit invested), social return on investment ratios (returning 1.98 – 7 per monetary unit invested), comparisons between groups (467 – 6,705 monetary units in healthcare savings), and qualitative data. The reporting quality in 11 studies was strong, and the findings aligned with those from less well-reported studies.

Conclusions: The findings provided support for investing in the arts to improve health and wellbeing of children and young people. Discussion of review limitations highlighted evidence from high-income countries only, and potentially eligible studies excluded due to vague abstracts. Future research and arts programme evaluations should consider using standardised measures appropriate for short- and long-term economic evaluations of both wellbeing and well-becoming for young people across their life-course.

Note:
Systematic review registration: PROSPERO: CRD420251056090

Funding Information: This work was partially supported by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) through the Arts4Us project (grant number AH/Z505493/1).

Declaration of Interests: ZM is Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Art Therapy. The authors declare no other competing interests