The Impact of Culture-, Health- and Nature-Based Engagement on Mitigating the Adverse Effects of Public Health Restrictions on Wellbeing, Social Connectedness and Loneliness during COVID-19: Quantitative Evidence from a Smaller- and Larger-Scale UK Survey.

Numerous UK surveys conducted during COVID-19 examined the pandemic's detrimental effects on health, and the consequences of lockdown and other public health restrictions on mental health. Some surveys considered specific populations and social inequities exacerbated during COVID-19. Fewer surveys examined the ways in which the adverse effects of public health restrictions, such as lockdown, shielding and social distancing, might be alleviated. Drawing upon self-determination theory, the purpose of the current study was to assess whether culture-, health- and nature-based engagement would mitigate the effects of these restrictions on psychological wellbeing, social connectedness and loneliness. Quantitative data from a smaller-scale survey (n = 312) and a subset of questions embedded in a larger-scale survey (n = 3647) were analyzed using univariate and multivariate methods. Frequency of engagement, whether participation was online or offline and with or without other people, and the extent to which type of participation was associated with psychological wellbeing, social connectedness and loneliness were examined. Sports and fitness, gardening and reading occurred frequently in both surveys. For the smaller-scale survey, increases in connectedness and frequency of participation and decreases in loneliness were significantly associated with improved wellbeing, whereas the type of participation and age range were not significant predictors. Outcomes from the smaller-scale survey approximated the larger-scale survey for measures of loneliness, type and frequency of participation and proportion of respondents in each age range. As the frequency of participation was a significant predictor of wellbeing, but the type of participation was not significant, the findings implied that any type of participation in a sufficient quantity would be likely to boost wellbeing.

Modelling arts professionals' wellbeing and career intentions within the context of COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a substantial effect on the creative and cultural industries in the United Kingdom (UK), as seen in our first snapshot of the HEartS Professional Survey (April-June 2020, Phase 1, N = 358). By analysing data collected one year later (April-May 2021, Phase 2, N = 685), the aims of the current study are to trace the contributors to (1) arts professionals' mental and social wellbeing and (2) their expectations of staying in the arts. Findings show that artists continued to experience challenges in terms of finances, and mental and social wellbeing. Over half of the respondents reported financial hardship (59%), and over two thirds reported being lonelier (64%) and having increased anxiety (71%) than before the pandemic. Hierarchical multiple linear regression models, using the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form, Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, Social Connectedness Scale, and Three-Item Loneliness Scale as outcome variables, indicate that perceived financial hardship continued to be associated with higher depression and loneliness scores. As in our first study, more physical activity before lockdown was associated with higher wellbeing and social connectedness scores, and higher self-rated health scores were associated with higher wellbeing and lower depression scores. Similarly, increases in physical activity during lockdown, as well as older age, were still associated with higher wellbeing and social connectedness scores and with lower depression and loneliness scores. An ordinal logistic regression model indicated three contributors to artists' professional expectations of remaining in the arts: greater proportion of income from the arts pre-pandemic, continued maintenance of skills, and greater proportion of freelance work. The results suggest that the wellbeing patterns observed at the start of the pandemic remained consistent a year on. They point to possible strategies to support wellbeing and underline the importance of finances for expectations of remaining in arts professions.

The future of the cultural workforce: Perspectives from early career arts professionals on the challenges and future of the cultural industries in the context of COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on the arts sector, disrupting livelihoods and professional networks and accentuating the instability that is common for creative workers. Gaps in support for grassroots organisations and freelance workers have highlighted structural inequalities within the industry, and the significant challenges for individual workers in the early stages of their career. Yet, the pandemic has also emphasised the importance of the arts as a community resource and its role in supporting wellbeing and togetherness. This qualitative study explored the experiences of the pandemic for early career arts workers, focusing on its impacts upon their livelihoods and how it has shaped their future career directions. Sixteen arts and cultural workers across a variety of sectors including theatre, film, circus, music, and literature participated in solo, semi-structured interviews during April-June 2021. Thematic analysis identified three overarching themes: (i) 'Pandemic precarity and creative practice', (ii) 'PostCOVID I: Inclusivity and diversifying audiences', and (iii) 'PostCOVID II: Adapting, developing, and disrupting cultural practices'. Overall, the experiences capture an early career workforce that, while committed and engaged with their creative practice, also seeks a more equitable, fairer, and diverse industry that protects artists and engages more flexibly with broader audiences.

Arts engagement supports social connectedness in adulthood: findings from the HEartS Survey.

BACKGROUND: Loneliness is a public health challenge, associated with premature mortality and poorer health outcomes. Social connections can mitigate against loneliness, and there is evidence that the arts can support social connectedness. However, existing research on the arts and social connectedness is limited by focus on particular age groups and arts activities, as well as a reliance on typically small-scale studies. METHODS: This study reports survey data from 5892 adults in the United Kingdom, closely matched to the national profile in terms of sociodemographic and economic characteristics. It investigates the extent to which arts engagement is perceived to be linked with feelings of social connectedness, which forms of arts engagement are reported as most connecting, and how. Data were collected via the HEartS Survey, a newly designed tool to capture arts engagement in the United Kingdom and its associations with social and mental health outcomes. Demographic and quantitative data, pertaining to the extent to which arts engagement is perceived to be linked with social connectedness, were analysed descriptively. Qualitative data pertaining to respondents' perceptions of how arts engagement is linked with feelings of social connectedness were analysed using inductive thematic analysis. RESULTS: Results demonstrated that the majority of respondents (82%) perceive their arts engagement to be linked with feelings of social connectedness at least some of the time. The forms of arts engagement most linked with feelings of social connectedness were attending a live music performance, watching a live theatre performance, and watching a film or drama at the cinema or other venue. Four overarching themes characterise how arts engagement is perceived to facilitate feelings of social connectedness: social opportunities, sharing, commonality and belonging, and collective understanding. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that arts engagement can support social connectedness among adults in the UK through multiple pathways, providing large-scale evidence of the important role that the arts can play in supporting social public health.

Arts engagement trends in the United Kingdom and their mental and social wellbeing implications: HEartS Survey.

Evidence on the role of the arts in promoting health and wellbeing has grown over the last two decades. In the United Kingdom, studies using secondary data sources have documented temporal variations in levels of arts engagement in the population, its determinants and its mental wellbeing implications. However, arts engagement is often characterized by prioritizing "high-brow" art forms. In this article, we introduce the HEartS Survey, a tool that aims to increase the balance between inclusivity and brevity of existing arts engagement measures and to focus specifically on the connection between arts engagement and social wellbeing. We explore trends in participatory and receptive engagement with literary, visual, performing, crafts and decorative arts among 5,338 adults in the UK in 2018-2019 using summative engagement scores and cluster analysis. Regression models, adjusted for demographic, socioeconomic, health, and social covariates, examine correlations between arts engagement and psychological and social wellbeing measures. Over 97% of respondents reported engagement in one or more arts activities at least once during 2018-2019, with reading and listening to music being the most popular activities. Arts engagement grouped into three distinct clusters: 19.8% constituted "low engagers" whose main source of engagement was occasional reading; 44.4% constituted "receptive consumers" who read and listened to music frequently and engaged with popular receptive arts activities such as cinema, live music, theater, exhibitions, and museums; and 35.8% constituted "omnivores" who frequently engaged in almost all arts activities. In agreement with existing studies, more arts engagement was associated with higher levels of wellbeing, social connectedness, and lower odds of intense social loneliness. In contrast, we found a positive association between more arts engagement, depression, and intense emotional loneliness for the most highly engaged omnivores. We conclude that arts engagement in the population forms specific profiles with distinct characteristics and consider implications for mental and social wellbeing.

Do the shuffle: Exploring reasons for music listening through shuffled play.

Adults listen to music for an average of 18 hours a week (with some people reaching more than double that). With rapidly changing technology, music collections have become overwhelmingly digital ushering in changes in listening habits, especially when it comes to listening on personal devices. By using interactive visualizations, descriptive analysis and thematic analysis, this project aims to explore why people download and listen to music and which aspects of the music listening experience are prioritized when people talk about tracks on their device. Using a newly developed data collection method, Shuffled Play, 397 participants answered open-ended and closed research questions through a short online questionnaire after shuffling their music library and playing two pieces as prompts for reflections. The findings of this study highlight that when talking about tracks on their personal devices, people prioritise characterizing them using sound and musical features and associating them with the informational context around them (artist, album, and genre) over their emotional responses to them. The results also highlight that people listen to and download music because they like it-a straightforward but important observation that is sometimes glossed over in previous research. These findings have implications for future work in understanding music, its uses and its functions in peoples' everyday lives.

The Effects of COVID-19 Lockdown 1.0 on Working Patterns, Income, and Wellbeing Among Performing Arts Professionals in the United Kingdom (April-June 2020).

This article reports data collected from 385 performing arts professionals using the HEartS Professional Survey during the COVID-19 Lockdown 1.0 in the United Kingdom. Study 1 examined characteristics of performing arts professionals' work and health, and investigated how these relate to standardized measures of wellbeing. Study 2 examined the effects of the lockdown on work and wellbeing in the respondents' own words. Findings from Study 1 indicate a substantial reduction in work and income. 53% reported financial hardship, 85% reported increased anxiety, and 63% reported being lonelier than before the crisis. 61% sought support on finances while only 45% did so on health and wellbeing. Multiple regression analyses, using the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form, Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, Social Connectedness Scale, and Three-Item Loneliness Scale as outcome variables, indicate that perceived financial hardship was associated with lower wellbeing and higher depression and loneliness scores. Higher self-rated health was associated with higher wellbeing and lower depression scores. More physical activity before lockdown was associated with higher wellbeing and social connectedness scores, as well as lower loneliness scores, and an increase in physical activity during lockdown compared with before, as well as older age, were associated with higher wellbeing and social connectedness scores, and lower depression and loneliness scores. Thematic inductive analysis of 341 open responses in Study 2 identified five overarching themes characterizing the effects of Lockdown 1.0: lost or uncertain work and income, including canceled work, financial concerns, and uncertainties for the future; constraints of lockdown working, including challenges of working at home, struggles with online work and skill maintenance, and caring responsibilities; loss and vulnerability, including reduced social connections, lack of support, vulnerability, feelings of loss and grief, and concern for others; detrimental effects on health and wellbeing, including anxiety, low or unstable mood, poorer physical health, and lack of motivation; and professional and personal opportunities, including coping well or living more healthily, more time and less pressure, new possibilities and activities, enhanced social connections, and new skills. Lockdown 1.0 had profound effects on performing arts professionals, but our findings reveal some opportunities and compelling links between positive wellbeing and physical activity.

Longitudinal Associations Between Short-Term, Repeated, and Sustained Arts Engagement and Well-Being Outcomes in Older Adults.

OBJECTIVES: This study investigated whether frequency of receptive arts engagement over 10 years contributes to experienced, evaluative, and eudaimonic well-being in older adults. METHODS: We used repeated data of 3,188 respondents from Waves 2-7 (2004/2005-2014/2015) of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. We examined longitudinal associations between short-term (frequent engagement at one wave), repeated (frequent engagement at 2-3 waves), and sustained (frequent engagement at 4-6 waves) arts engagement and experienced, evaluative and eudaimonic well-being. We fitted linear and logistic regression models adjusted for baseline well-being and a number of sociodemographic, economic, health, and social engagement factors. RESULTS: In the fully adjusted models, short-term engagement was not longitudinally associated with well-being, but repeated engagement with the theater/concerts/opera and museums/galleries/exhibitions was associated with enhanced eudaimonic well-being, and sustained engagement with these activities was associated with greater experienced, evaluative, and eudaimonic well-being. DISCUSSION: Long-term frequent engagement with certain arts activities is associated with higher levels of happiness, life satisfaction, self-realization, and control/autonomy in older adults. These findings suggest that policies that facilitate older adults' access to arts venues and activities, and support their continued engagement with them, may help to promote happy, fulfilling lives of an increasing segment of the population.

How do artistic creative activities regulate our emotions? Validation of the Emotion Regulation Strategies for Artistic Creative Activities Scale (ERS-ACA).

There is a rich literature exploring emotional responses to engaging in artistic creative activities such as making music, writing, dancing and crafts. However, it remains unclear how such activities affect our emotions; specifically which mental processes ('strategies') are used to regulate our emotional responses. This paper therefore describes the design and validation of a novel instrument measuring types of emotional regulation strategies (ERSs) used when engaging in artistic creative activities: the Emotion Regulation Strategies for Artistic Creative Activities Scale (ERS-ACA). Using data from an initial pilot study (n = 740 adults, 80.4% female, median age 25-34) and a follow-up large internet sample (n = 47,924, 56.7% female, average age 47.3 ± 14.6 years), we followed a theory-driven iterative factor analysis process. Our analyses converged on a final 18-item scale comprising an overall 'general' factor of ERSs alongside three subscales: a 7-item factor comprising 'avoidance strategies' (such as distraction, suppression and detachment), a 6-item factor comprising 'approach strategies' (such as acceptance, reappraisal and problem solving), and a 5-item factor comprising 'self-development strategies' (such as enhanced self-identify, improved self-esteem and increased agency). All factors showed strong internal reliability (Cronbach's alpha: General Factor = 0.93, Factor 1 = 0.9, Factor 2 = 0.88, Factor 3 = 0.88). We confirmed strong convergent and divergent validity, construct validity, consistency of internal reliability and test-retest reliability of the scale in a third study (n = 165, 82.2% female, average age 46.3 ± 12.2 years). In conclusion, artistic creative activities appear to affect our emotions via a number of ERSs that can be broadly classified into three categories: avoidance, approach and self-development. The ERS-ACA scale presented and validated here should support further research into the use of ERSs when engaging in artistic creative activities and enhance our understanding about how these activities affect mental health.

What About Their Performance Do Free Jazz Improvisers Agree Upon? A Case Study.

When musicians improvise freely together-not following any sort of script, predetermined harmonic structure, or "referent"-to what extent do they understand what they are doing in the same way as each other? And to what extent is their understanding privileged relative to outside listeners with similar levels of performing experience in free improvisation? In this exploratory case study, a saxophonist and a pianist of international renown who knew each other's work but who had never performed together before were recorded while improvising freely for 40 min. Immediately afterwards the performers were interviewed separately about the just-completed improvisation, first from memory and then while listening to two 5 min excerpts of the recording in order to prompt specific and detailed commentary. Two commenting listeners from the same performance community (a saxophonist and drummer) listened to, and were interviewed about, these excerpts. Some months later, all four participants rated the extent to which they endorsed 302 statements that had been extracted from the four interviews and anonymized. The findings demonstrate that these free jazz improvisers characterized the improvisation quite differently, selecting different moments to comment about and with little overlap in the content of their characterizations. The performers were not more likely to endorse statements by their performing partner than by a commenting listener from the same performance community, and their patterns of agreement with each other (endorsing or dissenting with statements) across multiple ratings-their interrater reliability as measured with Cohen's kappa-was only moderate, and not consistently higher than their agreement with the commenting listeners. These performers were more likely to endorse statements about performers' thoughts and actions than statements about the music itself, and more likely to endorse evaluatively positive than negative statements. But these kinds of statements were polarizing; the performers were more likely to agree with each other in their ratings of statements about the music itself and negative statements. As in Schober and Spiro (2014), the evidence supports a view that fully shared understanding is not needed for joint improvisation by professional musicians in this genre and that performing partners can agree with an outside listener more than with each other.

Between practice, policy and politics: Music therapy and the Dementia Strategy, 2009.

Does current music therapy practice address the goals encapsulated in the UK Department of Health document, Living well with dementia: a national dementia strategy (the Dementia Strategy) published in 2009? A survey elicited the views of clients, family members, music therapists, care home staff and care home managers, about this question by focusing on the relationship between music therapy and the 17 objectives outlined in the Dementia Strategy. The results showed that the objectives that are related to direct activity of the music therapists (such as care and understanding of the condition) were seen as most fulfilled by music therapy, while those regarding practicalities (such as living within the community) were seen as least fulfilled. Although the responses from the four groups of participants were similar, differences for some questions suggest that people's direct experience of music therapy influences their views. This study suggests that many aspects of the Dementia Strategy are already seen as being achieved. The findings suggest that developments of both music therapy practices and government strategies on dementia care may benefit from being mutually informed.

Listeners' and Performers' Shared Understanding of Jazz Improvisations.

This study explores the extent to which a large set of musically experienced listeners share understanding with a performing saxophone-piano duo, and with each other, of what happened in three improvisations on a jazz standard. In an online survey, 239 participants listened to audio recordings of three improvisations and rated their agreement with 24 specific statements that the performers and a jazz-expert commenting listener had made about them. Listeners endorsed statements that the performers had agreed upon significantly more than they endorsed statements that the performers had disagreed upon, even though the statements gave no indication of performers' levels of agreement. The findings show some support for a more-experienced-listeners-understand-more-like-performers hypothesis: Listeners with more jazz experience and with experience playing the performers' instruments endorsed the performers' statements more than did listeners with less jazz experience and experience on different instruments. The findings also strongly support a listeners-as-outsiders hypothesis: Listeners' ratings of the 24 statements were far more likely to cluster with the commenting listener's ratings than with either performer's. But the pattern was not universal; particular listeners even with similar musical backgrounds could interpret the same improvisations radically differently. The evidence demonstrates that it is possible for performers' interpretations to be shared with very few listeners, and that listeners' interpretations about what happened in a musical performance can be far more different from performers' interpretations than performers or other listeners might assume.

Analysing change in music therapy interactions of children with communication difficulties.

Music therapy has been found to improve communicative behaviours and joint attention in children with autism, but it is unclear what in the music therapy sessions drives those changes. We developed an annotation protocol and tools to accumulate large datasets of music therapy, for analysis of interaction dynamics. Analysis of video recordings of improvisational music therapy sessions focused on simple, unambiguous individual and shared behaviours: movement and facing behaviours, rhythmic activity and musical structures and the relationships between them. To test the feasibility of the protocol, early and late sessions of five client-therapist pairs were annotated and analysed to track changes in behaviours. To assess the reliability and validity of the protocol, inter-rater reliability of the annotation tiers was calculated, and the therapists provided feedback about the relevance of the analyses and results. This small-scale study suggests that there are both similarities and differences in the profiles of client-therapist sessions. For example, all therapists faced the clients most of the time, while the clients did not face back so often. Conversely, only two pairs had an increase in regular pulse from early to late sessions. More broadly, similarity across pairs at a general level is complemented by variation in the details. This perhaps goes some way to reconciling client- and context-specificity on one hand and generalizability on the other. Behavioural characteristics seem to influence each other. For instance, shared rhythmic pulse alternated with mutual facing and the occurrence of shared pulse was found to relate to the musical structure. These observations point towards a framework for looking at change in music therapy that focuses on networks of variables or broader categories. The results suggest that even when starting with simple behaviours, we can trace aspects of interaction and change in music therapy, which are seen as relevant by therapists.

Jazz improvisers' shared understanding: a case study.

To what extent and in what arenas do collaborating musicians need to understand what they are doing in the same way? Two experienced jazz musicians who had never previously played together played three improvisations on a jazz standard ("It Could Happen to You") on either side of a visual barrier. They were then immediately interviewed separately about the performances, their musical intentions, and their judgments of their partner's musical intentions, both from memory and prompted with the audiorecordings of the performances. Statements from both (audiorecorded) interviews as well as statements from an expert listener were extracted and anonymized. Two months later, the performers listened to the recordings and rated the extent to which they endorsed each statement. Performers endorsed statements they themselves had generated more often than statements by their performing partner and the expert listener; their overall level of agreement with each other was greater than chance but moderate to low, with disagreements about the quality of one of the performances and about who was responsible for it. The quality of the performances combined with the disparities in agreement suggest that, at least in this case study, fully shared understanding of what happened is not essential for successful improvisation. The fact that the performers endorsed an expert listener's statements more than their partner's argues against a simple notion that performers' interpretations are always privileged relative to an outsider's.