In collaboration with partners across Johns Hopkins University and throughout the Baltimore community, the Peabody Institute has mobilized the arts to support individual and community health and well-being. Building upon scientific research and artistic practices, Peabody’s Arts in Health initiatives encompass education, research, and clinical and community practices which serve artists, arts administrators, patients and care partners, healthcare providers and administrators, and citizens in the Baltimore community. 

The rapidly growing field of Arts in Health, defined by the National Organization for Arts in Health as “dedicated to using the power of the arts to enhance health and well-being in diverse institutional and community contexts,” complements the creative arts therapies in bringing the arts into clinical and community settings to support the World Health Organization’s broad definition of health, “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”  

Feedback from patients, caregivers, and staff at Johns Hopkins Hospital indicates that live music has a positive effect on their mood and reduces their stress. Artists enhance the clinical environment through performance, education, and engagement through the arts. While health benefits may result from engagement with Arts in Health programs, the practitioners’ aims are aesthetic rather than therapeutic, with a focus on positive distraction, entertainment, and creative engagement. Peabody provides training and professional development for students, performers, teaching artists, and arts administrators working in the field, equipping them for careers in the field of Arts in Health within the Baltimore community and beyond.