Arts and heatlh in the city of Madrid

Culture and art are valuable tools for promoting health and preventing disease. This is endorsed by the World Health Organisation, based on scientific evidence, which recommends including art and culture in health systems.

Madrid City Council, through the autonomous body Madrid Salud, has a health prevention and promotion strategy, which is implemented in 17 municipal community health centres distributed throughout the city of Madrid. In these centres, interdisciplinary teams of social and health workers promote healthy habits from a global bio-psycho-social health approach, with a community outlook, seeking contact and collaboration with organisations and citizens, to generate health assets and higher levels of health and wellbeing. The use of art as a tool for health promotion began more than 10 years ago, in collaboration with the Fine Arts and Education faculties of Madrid’s Complutense University, with internship programmes and research grants that actively seek overall improvement in the related areas. Today, art is integrated in programmes and activities in all the centres to a greater or lesser extent, having demonstrated its effectiveness in facilitating citizen involvement, generating equity and creating a network across municipal arts and culture organisations.

The pioneering centre in this task has been the Municipal Centre for Community Health in the district of Usera, one of the 21 districts of Madrid, located in the south of the city with 141,000 inhabitants, a significantly low net average income, an unemployment rate two points above the city’s average jobless rate and with twice the foreign immigrant population of the city of Madrid as a whole. The centre is located in a residential area with nearby educational centres and other services dedicated to youth, sport and culture. Recently, this centre hosted an event to present the Culture, Art and Community Health Project. This event was held with the aim of strengthening the network of collaboration with the artistic and cultural resources of the city council itself. The event was attended by political representatives from the Spanish capital, as well as the heads of entities and institutions with which the project collaborates, including representatives from the Complutense University of Madrid and the Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art. As part of this presentation, a sample of the more than 150 projects that have been carried out over the years to combat social isolation, stress, sedentary lifestyles, promote cognitive stimulation and help with challenging bereavement situations, among others, was on display. In addition to trainees and research grants, we already have integrated the first art facilitators as part of the centres’ programme for the prevention of problems surrounding bereavement issues. We continue to work to improve and expand the network of art, culture and health. Culture, art and health, a developing reality in the city of Madrid.