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This case study describes the reach and significance of research conducted by members of the interdisciplinary Sidney De Haan Research Centre for Arts & Health. The examples below focus on the impact of singing as a health and wellbeing intervention for adults within clinical and non-clinical populations. The research has shown that singing has had a beneficial impact on individuals and influenced fields of professional practice in health and social care in the UK and US, service delivery in the UK, and policy development in the UK through the work of the Royal Society for Public Health.
Professor Cary Cooper as chair of the Science Coordination team of a government Foresight programme led the development of evidence-based policy and a longer-term vision to optimise `Mental Capital and Wellbeing in the UK in the 21st Century'. He was also lead scientist on one of its five programme pathways — `Work and Wellbeing'. The MCW Foresight findings showed that in England alone, mental ill health costs the economy £77bn a year, demonstrating the significance of the research. The findings were presented to the highest levels of government in the UK and Europe, businesses, academia and interested parties. As a result there has been a significant drive and awareness to improve factors that affect wellbeing for example revised flexible working arrangements under the Children and Families Bill. Cabinet Secretary Lord Gus O'Donnell corroborates that `the report made politicians realise that they needed to care about wellbeing and that attacking mental health issues was a key way to raise wellbeing'.
This case study outlines the impacts arising from research conducted since 2001 by members of the UoA working in the Sidney De Haan Research Centre for Arts and Health (SDHRC), into the health and wellbeing benefits of group singing. The impacts have included improvements in the health and wellbeing of participants in specially created `singing for health' choirs, including clinically significant improvements in: mental health (mental health service users); lung function and health-related quality of life (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease COPD patients); and social, emotional and physical health benefits (older people). Additionally, an ongoing programme of research, dissemination and public engagement has acted to demonstrate and measure these benefits, promoting their potential for public health, and thus informing professional practice, public understanding and public policy.
In 2008, the University of Hertfordshire joined, as principal investigators for England, the World Health Organization's Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study. European and US policy makers use this long-running cross-national project to set directions for young people's health and wellbeing. Our findings (2011) directly informed policy in the departments of Health and Education, and were identified as a key data source underpinning the Department of Health's outcomes framework for children and young people. Our team also co-authored the World Health Organization's four-yearly international report for 2012, a widely influential document in health care policy and practice.
Research on the economic case for interventions to prevent mental illness, to address mental health needs and to promote mental wellbeing has been conducted by the Personal Social Services Research Unit (PSSRU) in the LSE Health and Social Care group with demonstrable impact on government policy in England and beyond. Research has influenced preparation of the National Dementia Strategy for England and the Prime Minister's Challenge on Dementia; underpinned the establishment of the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme; and generated part of the evidence base for the emphasis in the 2011 English mental health strategy on promoting mental health and preventing mental illness. The work has also influenced discussion led by the World Health Organization (WHO) and European Parliament.
There are very few evidence-based psychological interventions for people with Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. Of these, cognitive stimulation has the strongest evidence-base. Developed by Bob Woods (Bangor University) and Martin Orrell (UCL) in the late 1990s, the approach has proven effective in maintaining both cognitive function and quality of life. Recommended in guidelines around the world for use with people with mild to moderate dementia as the major evidence-based non-pharmacological intervention, it has assisted literally thousands of people with dementia and their carers globally to have a better quality of life both before and since 2008.
Lancaster research has highlighted the pervasive health inequalities and inadequate services experienced by people with learning disabilities (LD). Our 2005 report commissioned by the Department of Health (DH) proposed the establishment of a specialist LD observatory for England. This proposal was taken up by a government-commissioned independent inquiry and accepted.
The same team is one of three partners who, through a competitive tender process, have since 2010 been operating the first specialist LD public health observatory in the world. The observatory collects, analyses and summarises health information to improve the data available to DH and other stakeholders thereby improving the health of people with LD.
Edinburgh Napier University led on a large quasi-experimental study which evaluated a National Health Service (NHS) Demonstration Project called Healthy Respect. Healthy Respect was a complex public health intervention based on the latest evidence and theory, which combined school sex education with sexual health drop-in clinics in or near to schools, and was supported by large media and branding campaigns. The research was commissioned by the Scottish Government (2006-2010). Our findings were reported directly to Government and the NHS and were synchronized to fit their policy-making cycles. It shaped Government policy and steered service provision in the NHS.
Professor Marc Fleurbaey was appointed to the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Commission (instituted by President Sarkozy) on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress during 2007-09. His work at the LSE on measures of the quality of life and on criteria for the fair allocation of resources significantly shaped the Commission's thinking and had three forms of impact. A direct outcome of the Commission's report was fifty changes to the way that Eurostat and the associated national statistical institutes of the EU collect, report, and use data. The Commission's report also had impact on public debates around the world and was the subject of discussions in major media outlets globally and at high-profile conferences. Fleurbaey's work for the Commission and his research at LSE also led to his appointment to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and to his role as an advisor to the French Health Authority and Parliament.
Globally, many health research-funding organisations, public and charitable, felt the need to demonstrate to policymakers and the public how their investments in research were benefitting society. HERG's research on developing techniques for assessing the payback (or impact) from health research tackled this need. The payback stream of research itself has had significant, wide- reaching and cumulative impacts. First, internationally, health research funding bodies adopted the framework in their evaluation strategies, including to provide accountability. Second, many stakeholders made extensive use the findings of payback studies in public debate and private lobbying for public expenditure on health research. Third, governments, public research funding bodies and medical research charities, from the UK to Australia, used the findings from payback studies to inform decisions regarding the levels and distribution of health research funding, with the aim of increasing the health and economic benefits that come from investments in research.