Opportunities & Events
Creative Health Research Round-Up 2025: Online Event
Start Date: Wednesday 28 January 2026, 12:00–2:00pm
Summary:
As we enter January 2026, NCCH are pleased to invite you to the Creative Health Research Round-Up 2025, an online event taking place on Wednesday 28 January 2026, 12:00–2:00pm (GMT), marking the launch of the first annual Creative Health Research Round-Up.
Content:
Late last year, the call for submissions to the Creative Health Research Round-Up 2025 invited researchers, practitioners, and organisations to share creative health research published during 2025. Led by the National Centre for Creative Health (NCCH) in partnership with the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH), the call welcomed peer-reviewed articles, reports, evaluations, and grey literature with a UK-based application. Submissions were required to be publicly accessible (or accompanied by accessible summaries) and to include a short lay summary explaining the relevance of the research for practice.
Alongside the live event, a published report will summarise all eligible submissions in clear, accessible language, supporting practitioners, policymakers, and commissioners to engage with and apply the latest evidence. On the day, we will also showcase exciting and impactful creative health research from 2025, with seven invited authors presenting their work following a strong national response to the call. The session will be held on Microsoft Teams, with access details shared upon registration.
The event offers a valuable opportunity to engage with researchers and community leaders at the forefront of creative health, and to explore the evidence, impact, and future directions of this rapidly evolving field.
The session will present these Research Projects:
Crafting Lyrics, Breaking Barriers: Hear about a qualitative study that delves into the role of rap music in facilitating mental health expression among Black men in the UK. Through interviews with rap artists, this research uncovers how rap provides a culturally relevant, safe space for articulating emotions, navigating stigma, and fostering connection, while also highlighting the need for more inclusive, community-informed mental health support.
The Body Hotel Self-Care Suite: Explore the evaluation of The Body Hotel Self-Care Suite, a movement- and body-based programme designed for NHS staff in Wales, particularly those working in palliative care. This creative intervention uses dance and movement to enhance staff wellbeing, psychological safety, and team cohesion, demonstrating the value of body-based practices in supporting the mental health of healthcare professionals.
ReCITE: Learn how the ReCITE programme is driving community-led innovation to reduce health inequalities in the Liverpool City Region. Working with Community Innovation Teams across Liverpool, Knowsley, and Sefton, ReCITE supports hyper-local interventions addressing challenges such as immunisation, cancer screening, and mental wellbeing, and demonstrates the power of partnership and local insight in achieving measurable health equity outcomes.
SHAPER-PND: Examine the clinical and implementation effectiveness of the SHAPER-PND Randomised Control Trial, which evaluated a community singing intervention for mothers experiencing postnatal depression in South London. The Melodies for Mums programme was found to be highly acceptable, appropriate, and cost-effective, with lasting improvements in maternal mental health and the mother-infant relationship, highlighting the transformative potential of arts-based interventions in perinatal care.
(not) lovely: Enacting solidarity in dementia care through participatory Arts: This study explores how participatory arts can support people living with dementia by recognising and validating emotions often overlooked in care settings. Through ethnographic research of Entelechy Arts' Walking Through Walls programme in a London care home, the study demonstrates how creative, embodied responses can transform "negative" emotions into opportunities for connection and collective expression, challenging dominant models of dementia care that pathologise distress.
Using Oral Histories: A Methodology for Public Health Advocacy: By recontextualising a 1984 oral history collection to design seven innovative interventions including ESOL lessons, participatory mapping, and interactive galleries, this research investigates how museum objects can be used to improve health in Birmingham. The study demonstrates that heritage objects can be reimagined as tools for health literacy with real impact on participants' knowledge and behaviours, positioning museums as spaces for lifelong learning and public health advocacy.
Abundance Project: Discover how the Abundance Project is addressing persistent health inequalities among Black, minority ethnic, and refugee communities in Southwest London. This initiative mobilises local cultural and green assets to support mental health, using storytelling workshops and community-led walks to map assets and lived experiences. The project highlights the intersecting barriers these communities face and demonstrates the importance of holistic, community-driven approaches to improving access and wellbeing.
The event will be chaired by Alex Coulter, Director of NCCH, and Professor Susan Hogan, Chair of RSPH Arts and Health SIG.