Cultural Well-being: Cross-sectorial Collaboration between the Cultural and Health sectors in North Italy.

Despite scientific evidence supporting the benefits of cultural engagement for human well-being, the cultural and health sectors have traditionally operated independently. A shift occurred in 2018 when the European Commission realised the New Agenda for Culture emphasizing the capacity of culture to create social cohesion and health improvements. This marked a change for the cultural sector which promoted initiatives across Europe to bridge the cultural and health sectors. The importance of this milestone document of EU cultural policy has been highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which made clear and urgent the need to implement innovative approaches to achieve community well-being. In North Italy, new projects that are following the New European Agenda for Culture objectives by developing a systematic collaboration between the cultural and health sectors have taken place. This thesis enquires which are the strategies delineated and challenges encountered by the cultural sector in North Italy to foster collaboration with the health sector in view of the objectives outlined in the New European Agenda for Culture (2018). Moreover, the study explores how the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic influenced this process and which is the future perspective of this interdisciplinary collaboration development in North Italy. To answer these questions, this research will analyse the case study of the Piedmont Region by conducting a content analysis of official documents and reports involved in the case, semi-structured interviews with experts actively involved in the case, and desk research. As a result, this study shows that not only the release of the New European Agenda of Culture (2018) has been a key event for the cross-sectorial collaboration development in Piedmont, but also the release of the WHO Report n. 67, a scoping review composed of the studies about the effects of culture on health, in 2019 have notably influenced the case analysed. Moreover, this research illustrates how the COVID-19 crisis played as a leverage for change, exposing the fragilities of the system and exacerbating the need of a change both in the conception of health and the role of culture on it. To schematize the strategies and challenges that characterize the process of interdisciplinary implementation, it will be applied a conceptual framework of two conceptual categories proposed by the researcher: Increase Awareness and Cross-sectorial collaboration. The strategies and challenges that characterize the “increase awareness” process are divided into four levels: policy, community, health sector, and cultural sector level. The strategies and challenges that characterized the cross-sectorial collaboration implementation process are divided into organizational and individual professional levels. Finally, the study illustrates the future perspective of the culture and health collaboration implementation, these comprehend the development of a new field characterized by new professional figures, new opportunities for the cultural sectors and a holistic perception of the concept of health.