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(MENAFN- USA Art News) ## At Tefaf Summit, New Research Puts a Price on Art's Health Benefits - and the Numbers Are Striking

Can a museum visit be measured like a public-health intervention? At the Tefaf Summit in Maastricht on March 16, researcher Fancourt will argue that it can, presenting findings that link arts engagement to measurable mental-health gains and substantial economic value.

The presentation forms part of this year's summit, which is framed around“Beyond Economic Impact: Rethinking Culture in Public Policy” at MECC, Maastricht. The program's premise is that culture's public value should be assessed in more than market terms - and Fancourt's data-driven approach aims to make that case legible to policymakers.

Among the most attention-grabbing conclusions: people living with depression see nearly twice the improvement in symptoms when arts therapies are added to standard treatments such as medication and psychotherapy. In other words, creative interventions are not positioned as a replacement for clinical care, but as an additive tool that can materially strengthen outcomes.

Fancourt's research also points to prevention, not only treatment. Regular attendance at cultural activities - including theatre, live music events, museums, and galleries - could nearly halve a person's risk of developing depression over the next 10 years. The implication is straightforward but consequential: participation in cultural life may function as a long-term protective factor, with benefits that accrue quietly over time.

Over the past year, Fancourt has been working with the UK government on new economic modeling that translates these health effects into monetary terms. The resulting estimates are designed to counter a familiar narrative in public spending debates: that the arts are a“nice to have” compared with the sciences or other sectors more readily associated with measurable returns.

One figure, in particular, is likely to resonate in a policy setting. In the UK, the general health benefits of engaging in the arts for working-age adults alone are estimated to be worth more than £18bn each year.

Fancourt has emphasized that the language of return on investment is already commonplace in adjacent fields.“In an age where we're increasingly focusing on every pound and whether it's worth spending, it's important to acknowledge when you do see these returns,” she said, noting that sectors such as sports and leisure routinely quantify their social and economic payoffs.

Although the findings will be delivered in the context of an art fair ecosystem, Fancourt has been careful to separate the benefits of arts engagement from the rarified spaces of the market. She argues that creativity is not inherently elite - and that it is only in recent decades that a widespread human behavior has been systematically commodified. In her writing, she points back to earlier eras when storytelling, singing, and dancing were woven into daily life across societies.

That perspective shapes a broader claim: arts engagement should be understood as a right, not a luxury. The health effects, she suggests, are not confined to major institutions or professional stages.“You don't have to go to a professional West End theatre show,” she said.“You get similar benefits from going to watch schoolchildren perform as you do watching professionals.”

For an art world still recalibrating after years of intensified commercialization, the argument lands with particular force. If the arts can be shown to reduce illness, improve outcomes, and generate quantifiable public value, then the conversation shifts: culture becomes not merely an object of patronage or prestige, but a component of civic infrastructure - one that can be supported in communities as meaningfully as in museums.

Fancourt's appearance at the Tefaf Summit signals a growing appetite for that reframing, especially as governments and institutions search for models that justify cultural funding in terms that finance ministries recognize, without reducing art to a balance-sheet line item.

The Tefaf Summit session is titled“Beyond Economic Impact: Rethinking Culture in Public Policy” and takes place at MECC, Maastricht, on March 16.

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