In 2025 and 2026, in collaboration with the National Endowment for the Arts, NASAA convened an Arts and Health Professional Learning Community that engaged more than 70 state and jurisdictional arts agency (SAA) and regional arts organization (RAO) staff representing more than 36 states and regions. Together, through monthly meetings, two national webinars and an in person convening, these leaders explored how SAAs and RAOs can help build durable arts and health infrastructure across the country.

The synthesized learnings from these endeavors are available in a report, a highlights and recommendations document and webinar recordings.

• Highlights and Recommendations: Promoting Statewide Strategies in the Arts and Health
• Full Report: A Guide to Promoting Statewide Strategies in the Arts and Health
• Webinar: Arts & Health Research: The Case for Advancing Policy
• Webinar: Improving Health through Prescribing the Arts 

State arts agencies are primed to be leaders of a paradigm shift in health care that embraces the arts as a pathway to healthier individuals and communities. Find innovative strategies and essential data for leveraging the strength of the arts in clinical and community settings below.

Image Credits

Header: Will “Casso” Condry and Leon “Rain” Rainbow created City of Dreams in the garden of East Trenton Collaborative, a community organizing and development initiative in the East Trenton neighborhood of Trenton’s North Ward. Photo courtesy of New Jersey State Council on the Arts

Artists: Elders and kids work together creating paintings in the Warli style. Photo courtesy of North Dakota Council on the Arts, Troyd Geist

Soldier with guitar: Photo courtesy of the U.S. Army