In this episode of Medicine and the Healing Arts, hosts Profs. Michael Stanley-Baker and Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim speak with Dr. Nils Fietje about the role of culture, arts and the humanities in shaping health and well-being.
Dr. Fietje is based at the Behavioural and Cultural Insights unit at the WHO Regional Office for Europe. With a background in English literature and the cultural history of medicine, he now works at the intersection of culture, public health and policy, asking how cultural contexts affect the ways people understand illness, care, pain, treatment and well-being.
Together, Michael, Ronit and Nils explore how someone with a PhD in English literature came to work at the WHO; what culture has to do with public health; and why the humanities matter for medicine today. They discuss the growing field of arts and health, including the evidence that artistic and cultural participation can support mental health, social connection and physical well-being.
The conversation also looks at social prescribing, the idea that a GP might one day prescribe a museum visit, a choir, a nature walk or another form of cultural engagement alongside more conventional forms of care. More broadly, the episode asks how culture can help us rethink what counts as evidence, what kinds of knowledge matter in medicine, and how health systems might better respond to the complexity of human experience.
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Links and resources:
Dr. Nils Fietje profile from the Culture for Health project:
https://www.cultureforhealth.eu/inspiration/how-the-arts-entered-the-who/
The evidence on the role of the arts in improving health and well-being — scoping review:
https://bci-hub.org/documents/what-evidence-role-arts-improving-health-and-well-being-scoping-review
The Lancet article on arts, health and well-being:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(15)60226-4/fulltext
The BCI Hub, an online resource centre and knowledge repository for emerging research on behavioural and cultural factors that affect health behaviour, in collaboration with the WHO Collaborating Centre at the University of Exeter:
https://bci-hub.org/
NHS Social prescribing (England):
https://www.england.nhs.uk/personalisedcare/social-prescribing/
UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport 2024 report on culture, health and wellbeing:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/culture-and-heritage-capital-research-and-outputs
Daniel Moerman, Meaning, Medicine and the ‘Placebo Effect’:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/meaning-medicine-and-the-placebo-effect/C189929ABE972E5D4C7FE32008EE8838
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