Health Economic Evaluation for Creative Health

This webinar explored how creative health is valued, turning wellbeing and community impact into evidence that shapes funding and policy.

Creative health initiatives generate wide ranging benefits, from improved wellbeing and stronger communities to reduced pressure on public services. The session considered how to measure and evidence this value – often intangible, subjective, and cross-sectoral – in ways that influence funding and policy decisions.

The webinar introduced the qualities of both health economic evaluations and creative health that needed consideration when designing national guidance for how to value complex, non-market outcomes.

Led by Dr Elaine Ryan-McNeill and Uisce Cooney Newton from the Mobilising Community Assets Economics Workstream at UCL, the session was informed by learnings from projects cultivating local, cultural, and natural community assets to address health inequalities across the UK.

This workstream contributed to the development of national Green Book-aligned guidance for the economic evaluation of creative health, rather than relying on clinical health-based guidance, aiming to ensure the sector's value was robustly recognised in public decision-making.