Growth and Aspiration: Arts and Well-being in Hong Kong

"Growth and Aspiration: Arts and Well-being in Hong Kong" is a study commissioned by the British Council in Hong Kong and written by Professor Sophia Law of Lingnan University, investigating Hong Kong's receptiveness to the arts as an agent for better well-being, with a focus on services for three groups of people – elderly people, disabled people and at-risk youth.

The idea of combining ‘arts and well-being’ as the subject matter of this study is to use the arts as a platform to enhance well-being. This refers to artistic interventions that allow participants to experience the positive impact of participatory arts. For example, the development of arts activities in a health, education or social care environment, could improve the health and well-being of service users through engagement with the arts.

This report examines existing examples of this type of work in Hong Kong, and also makes a number of important findings that suggest there is potential for further initiatives in this area:

- 98% of Hong Kong professionals surveyed across arts, education, social and health care sectors believe that participation in the arts can be beneficial to well-being.

- However, there remains capacity for greater use of the arts for well-being in the work that these professionals are doing. Over a quarter of those surveyed had no engagement whatsoever with the arts in the three months prior to the study

- There is also a cross-sectoral desire to learn more about the use of arts for well-being (77% of survey respondents), and an even stronger desire to see the arts being used more in the course of their work (92% of survey respondents)