Midwest Arts & Public Health Mapping Project Overview
The purpose of our research is to identify the arts in health agencies throughout the Midwest. This research will hopefully help assist those arts in health agencies to receive more funding where there are gaps in programming. It will also help to benchmark their achievements on a systematic platform and create more visibility for the growing field. Our research is based off of a study conducted by the Center for Arts in Medicine at the University of Florida, which entails conducting a systematic search to identify, verify, survey, and map organizations, components therein (e.g., departments, units, programs), or partnerships that use the arts to promote health in community or healthcare settings. By replicating and modifying the UF's research study to best fit the arts in health programs found within the Midwest, the hope is to create the groundwork for eventually mapping all 50 states. The final step of this research is to map the collected data. This will be done using the ArcGIS StoryMaps platform accessible through the University of Minnesota. This is the final step in research and has not been started yet.
TOP 5 GOALS WITH THIS RESEARCH INTERNSHIP
1. Identify arts in health agencies within the Midwest.
2. Develop templates, protocol, and training instructions in order to systematically map arts in health agencies in all 50 states.
3. Network within the fields of public health and arts in health.
4. Effectively use Qualtrics for survey design, data and analysis.
5. Develop teamwork and group-building skills among the research team.
TEMPLATES, EMAILS, AND KEYWORD SEARCH
TEMPLATES
During the research process, a folder with all used document templates was created by the UMD research team to help assist the next arts in health research project. These templates serve as a guideline for how to organize and process information. These are meant to be treated as working documents, meaning modifications and edits to the templates during the research process are allowed and encouraged if the edits are helpful.
EMAILS
The process of emailing agencies takes place in part one of the research; a systematic search of arts in health programs. This method of systematic search was the idea of Dr. Tornabene, the head of the UMD’s arts in health in Minnesota research team. The purpose of contacting agencies directly during the systematic search is to help identify more arts in health agencies through word of mouth. Another benefit of this method is to give the researchers a rough idea of when most of the agencies from a state have been documented. Once most if not all of the new recommendations have already been recommended previously, it’s likely that most arts in health agencies have been recorded.
KEYWORD SEARCH
The purpose of the keyword web search is to aid in generating a database of arts in health programs. The keyword web search combines various arts terms with health terms. This search is further refined by the location in which the arts in health mapping research is taking place (e.g. arts in health in Minnesota). A google sheets formula is utilized to generate all possible combinations of the “arts” and “health” terms. The arts terms used in the search (arts, creative arts, music, theatre, dance, writing, visual art, creativity, exhibits, gallery, artist, artists in residence, art program, performance, performing arts and community arts) came from Sonke, Helgemo, and Pesetas’ (2019) arts in health mapping project they conducted in Florida.
The health terms used in the keyword search included two from the Florida mapping project (wellness, and community health) as well as thirteen terms (health promotion, health education, public health, wellbeing, health educators, public health educators, certified health education specialist, health coaches, advocacy, communication, interventions, health programs, and chronic diseases) generated by the University of Minnesota Duluth arts in health mapping research team.
QUALTRICS
What is it and what did we learn?
Qualtrics is an online website that allows users to create surveys to analyze their data and easily share their findings through the web or to their contacts if needed. Some key features while using this survey system include enhancing the look and feel of the survey, anonymous linking and contact list distribution, evaluation tools regarding survey elements to manage responses, and basic reporting to analyze data. To get familiar with Qualtrics website, click here. Using Qualtrics has helped us distribute, analyze, and organize survey data that we sent out to arts in health organizations.
Research Article
This semester much of our time was spent creating a research article describing our research, project, and results. Our article consists of the following sections: abstract, background, rational, methods, results, discussion, graphics, and references. Our hope is to one day have our research article published to The Journal of Arts & Health which is an international journal for research, policy, and practice.
NCUR 2022 @Home
This semester we were given the opportunity to virtually present our Midwest Arts & Public Health Mapping Project at the National Conference of Undergraduate Research (NCUR) on April 4th 2022. To do so we created a slide show containing the main points of our research.
Meet the Students
Donovan Doffing '22
Hey all! My name is Donovan Doffing and I am a senior in the Public Health Program here at UMD. The health interests I am most passionate about include mental health, suicide prevention, and arts in health. To pursue my passions outside of this research, I took the course Arts in Public and Community Health last semester where I worked alongside the University of Minnesota Extension on multiple of their projects/programs. This semester I also have been an intern for Carlton County Public Health and Human Services where they do a great deal of work with community mental health/suicide prevention. I worked on various projects while interning at Carlton County, my main project being my own arts-based suicide prevention intervention that I partnered with REACH for and worked directly with their Students Offering Support (SOS) groups. I will be graduating in May of 2022 with the hope of securing an entry-level position pertaining to mental health, suicide prevention, and arts & health.
Reflection
This semester of research has helped me realize even more the magnitude of the positive impacts art can have on health. Throughout my work this semester, I have immersed myself in the world of arts and now hope to have a career one day where I can pursue my passion. While working on creating a research article with the hopes of it becoming published, I have fine tuned my professional writing greatly. In preparing myself and my materials to present at a national conference, I developed my professional public speaking and communication skills even greater as well. I am so grateful for all of the opportunities that have emerged for me through my research, and I am excited see where it takes me.
Maya Cochrane '22
Hi there! My name is Maya Cochrane and I'm a senior with a Psychology major and a Public Health minor. I aim to pursue graduate school for geriatric occupational therapy after my time at UMD, so my areas of focus include the elderly population, promoting well-rounded views of health, and how the arts can be used as a supplementary treatment to medications commonly used when treating people with dementia. Over the 2021-2022 academic year I was Dr. Tornabene's research assistant and UURP recipient working on mapping arts in health organizations throughout the Midwest. After I graduate in the summer my position will be vacant, but I plan to continue working on this project nonetheless.
Reflection
This past year working with Dr. Tornabene has been life-changing in the best ways possible. I never thought that I would be involved in research until graduate school, so I was overjoyed to hear that I got into UURP which I applied to on a whim. Over the past year, I have corresponded directly with organizations that we included in our directory, worked with Qualtrics to distribute surveys and analyze data, been the project lead for a publication we're completing on the topic, and wrote lots of abstracts to submit for conferences. In the next couple of months, I will be presenting on the program's behalf at the National Conference of Undergraduate Research and the International Union for Health Promotion and Education, as well as some smaller showcases run throughout CEHSP. It's definitely been a steep learning curve and was a lot of information to take in at once, but it has been rewarding in both the relationships I've made and how it's prepared me for graduate school/working life.