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Arts, mental distress, mental health functioning & mental wellbeing: fixed-effects analyses of a nationally-representative panel study

Senhu Wang,H. Mak,D. Fancourt

Published 2019 in Unknown venue

ABSTRACT

Background Arts engagement within communities is ubiquitous across cultures globally and previous research has suggested benefits for mental health and wellbeing. However, it remains unclear whether these benefits are due to the confounding impact of factors such as socio-economic status (SES), childhood arts engagement, previous mental health, personality, or self-selection bias. So this study used fixed effects models that account for even unidentified time-constant confounding measures to examine the longitudinal association between arts (frequency of both arts participation and cultural attendance), mental distress, mental health functioning, and mental wellbeing. Methods Data from 23,660 individuals (with a mean age of 47 years) included in the UK Understanding Society wave 2 (2010-2012) and wave 5 (2013-2015) were analyzed. Changes in frequencies of art engagement were related to changes in mental health within individual over time whilst accounting for time-varying confounders. Results After controlling for all time-constant variables and identified time-varying confounders, frequent arts participation and cultural attendance were associated with lower levels of mental distress and higher levels of life satisfaction, with arts participation additionally associated with higher mental health functioning. Health-related and social time-varying factors were shown to partly but not wholly explain the observed associations. Conclusion Arts engagement amongst the population as a whole may help enhance positive mental health and wellbeing, and protect against mental distress. These results are not explained by any time-constant confounding factors.

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