Study shows wellbeing benefits of visiting a museum are stronger in deprived areas 9 Sep 2021

A study published on the British Medical Journal’s Open Access site shows that the link between wellbeing and visiting cultural places - including museums and heritage sites – is stronger in deprived areas. The large study from the Department of Geography at University College London interviewed 14,783 people over three years, to discover how community cultural engagement (CCE) effect on wellbeing varied by local prosperity. However, people in more deprived areas are less likely to engage in cultural activity, not just because of characteristics such as lower educational attainment, but because the areas themselves offer fewer cultural opportunities. This reinforces the need for programmes such as ACE’s Creative People and Places, which seeks to grow the cultural offer in under-served areas. Museum Next