Evidencing the wellbeing impact of museums and galleries
To help you advocate for the wellbeing benefits of museum visiting, we’ve brought together a review of recent research studies showing that museums and galleries support health and wellbeing.
Today we published a first-of-its-kind study that proves the positive impact of art on the body.
To help museum professionals champion the wellbeing benefits of visiting museums, we also commissioned a review of other recent research studies on this subject, which you can find here.
We hope that this will help you to explore and speak about this topic with confidence, and promote the wellbeing benefits of visiting museums to your audiences.
The wellbeing impact of museums and galleries: Evidence summary
Summary
Engaging with museums and galleries through both visiting and participation has clear, evidence-based benefits for mental and physical wellbeing. Research shows improvements in mental health, life satisfaction, and social connection, alongside reduced risks of depression, dementia, and loneliness.
Emerging physiological studies also suggest that even brief museum visits can lower stress hormones, blood pressure, and heart rate, while regular long-term cultural engagement supports better mental health, cognitive function, and longevity.
This summary is grouped into two areas of engagement: visiting museums and taking part in museum programmes. It highlights key findings from UK-based studies published between 2014 and 2024. To access a full literature review of these studies produced by Dr Nuala Morse (University of Leicester), please contact museums@artfund.org.
Regular museum visits support mental and physical health
Mental health & life satisfaction: Frequent cultural attendance (visiting museums, galleries, exhibitions, theatre, cinema and concerts every few months or more) is associated with better mental health, higher wellbeing, and lower psychological distress (Wheatley & Bickerton, 2017; Wang et al., 2020).
Quality of life: Visiting museums and galleries has a positive impact on happiness and self-reported health among adults (Fujiwara, 2013; Fujiwara & MacKerron, 2015).
Reduced depression: Adults aged 50+ who visit museums every few months have up to a 32% lower risk of developing depression, further lowered to 48% when engaging monthly or more (Fancourt & Tymoszuk, 2019).
Reduced dementia risk: Regular attendance lowers the risk of developing dementia over a 10-year period (Fancourt, Steptoe & Cadar, 2018).
Lower frailty and disability: Older adults who regularly participate in cultural activities have a lower likelihood of becoming frail or developing a disability (Rogers & Fancourt, 2020; Fancourt & Steptoe, 2019a).
Reduced loneliness: Regular museum visits significantly reduce feelings of loneliness (Tymoszuk, Perkins, Fancourt et al., 2020).
Longer life expectancy: Frequent cultural engagement is associated with longer survival (Bygren et al., 2009; Fancourt & Steptoe, 2019).
Participating in museum-based activities builds confidence, connection, and cognitive wellbeing
Reduced anxiety: Museum art programmes have been shown to reduce anxiety and build confidence (Binnie, 2010) and viewing art in a gallery setting has been shown to lower levels of the key stress hormone, cortisol (Woods et al., 2025).
Reduced loneliness: Studies of museum-based programmes including The Museums on Prescription found that regular visits, guided tours, and art-making, can improve wellbeing and reduce social isolation for older adults (Thomson et al., 2018).
Cognitive function: Older adults who frequently visited museums, art galleries and exhibitions were less likely to have poorer cognitive functioning. Higher frequency of visits was associated with greater protective effects on cognition (Fancourt & Steptoe, 2018).