WHO/Europe, supported by the European Union (EU), is expanding efforts to help Eastern Partnership countries integrate arts and culture into health systems through a series of regional capacity-building workshops. These workshops serve as catalysts for country-led action and collaboration, enabling nations to move from fragmented initiatives to structured, evidence-based approaches that align with national health priorities.
Health systems across the region face multiple pressures, including demographic shifts, workforce shortages, and less visible challenges such as trauma, social isolation, and long-term stress. Recognizing the potential of arts and culture to enhance recovery, resilience, and dignity in care—particularly for mental health and well-being—WHO/Europe is supporting countries to harness creative approaches as part of a broader public health strategy.
This work is part of the Building Arts Capacity for Health (BACH) pillar of the EU-funded “Health Resilience in the Eastern Partnership” programme, a three-year initiative financed by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Enlargement and Eastern Neighbourhood. The programme supports Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova, and Ukraine in strengthening health workforce capacities and enhancing mental health systems through collaboration with the cultural sector.
Workshops held in late 2025 helped participating countries map existing arts-in-health initiatives, connect health and culture sectors, and build capacity to design and implement arts-in-health programmes. Integrating arts into healthcare can include museum visits to reduce loneliness, dance classes for people with Parkinson’s disease, music therapy for dementia patients, or choir activities to improve lung health, demonstrating the wide-ranging benefits of creative interventions.
Participants noted that arts-in-health approaches offer people-centred ways to support healthy ageing, mental well-being, social inclusion, and complement ongoing efforts to strengthen primary care and health system resilience. Workshops emphasized practical learning, with participants exploring co-design and evaluation tools, reviewing case studies of arts-based interventions, and discussing governance, ethics, and monitoring frameworks to ensure sustainable creative collaborations.
In Yerevan, Armenia, stakeholders from Armenia and Georgia examined how arts can enhance mental health and psychosocial support, strengthen community engagement, and reduce stigma. In Chișinău, Moldova, participants from Moldova and Ukraine explored how arts can support mental well-being, workforce resilience, and service innovation, highlighting the importance of cross-sector collaboration among ministries, local authorities, universities, civil society, and cultural organisations.
WHO/Europe plans to build on the workshops by supporting countries to pilot arts-in-health initiatives, develop monitoring and evaluation frameworks, and sustain regional learning through communities of practice. This follow-up work will help translate workshop ideas into actionable projects, aligning arts-in-health efforts with national mental health strategies and broader system reforms.
By embedding arts and culture into the “Health Resilience in the Eastern Partnership” programme, WHO and the EU aim to strengthen people-centred health systems, introduce creative solutions to complex challenges, and advance shared goals under the EU-WHO partnership for resilient, inclusive healthcare.
