Arts & Health Track
40 years of arts-led community health practice, culminating into a new wellness paradigm, at the world's largest annual convening of the performing arts
January 15-19, 2027 · NYC Hilton Midtown
This is your invitation to join us as a co-builder and sponsor
Why Now Is Different: The Arts and Health Convergence
Six structural conditions are converging simultaneously. Any one alone would be significant. Together, they represent a once-in-a-generation window.
The biomarker science is arriving now
Nature Medicine published a systematic review of 95 arts-and-health studies in 2025 — the published, citable evidence base. EpiArts Lab's biomarker studies are currently underway and imminent, the exercise-research moment of the 1980s: the science that made a practice a legitimate health resource.
Social prescribing has achieved proof of concept at scale
$4.43 return per dollar invested. 42% reduction in primary care visits. 24% reduction in emergency department use. 9:1 return on wellbeing outcomes. Massachusetts launched the first statewide arts prescription program. Two insurers are paying. SocialRx (formerly Art Pharmacy) now operates in 10 states — Arizona, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. NJPAC secured a seven-figure endowment from Horizon BCBS and RWJ/Barnabas Health.
The Vital Conditions framework has named arts as essential infrastructure
The Vital Conditions for Health and Well-Being — developed by the Rippel Foundation and RWJF, adopted by state health departments and federal agencies — explicitly identifies vibrant arts, culture, and spiritual life as one of seven essential conditions every person needs to thrive.
Urban wellness infrastructure is being built right now
Organizations like Therme Group are developing major urban wellness facilities in Washington DC, Dallas, New York, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. The performing arts field has no organized relationship with this sector. APAP can build one, beginning at APAP|NYC 2027.
Key bi-partisan policy moment
NEA FY2027 grant guidelines explicitly include arts and health, establishing a verified and durable funding priority. The bipartisan coalition opportunity is equally durable: loneliness, youth mental health, aging & senior care, veterans' health, rural & heartland health, workforce and wellbeing burnout, and community benefit compliance are cross-aisle issues that do not depend on any single political party.
Practitioners & the arts want cultural prescribing CME infrastructure
There is no accredited continuing medical education curriculum that trains physicians to prescribe the arts. That gap is an obstacle and an opportunity. Physician training is the demand switch. Right now, no one has flipped it, so a real pipeline does not exist yet.
"This year we are going to see publication of biological studies where we now have biomarkers and are able to analyze the effect of arts participation on proteins in the body that affect things like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and depression. That was the game changer for exercise in the 1980s." — Dr. Jill Sonke, EpiArts Lab, University of Florida — ArtsRx Panel, APAP|NYC 2026
The Gap Between Healthcare and Wellbeing
The problem is not lack of evidence or lack of programs. The gaps are specific and closable.
The Loneliness Crisis
The U.S. Surgeon General declared loneliness a public health epidemic. Social isolation increases mortality risk by 26% — comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Healthcare has no scalable, non-pharmaceutical intervention network to address it.
The Chronic Disease Burden
Chronic disease accounts for 90% of the $4.5 trillion the U.S. spends on healthcare annually. Behavioral and social determinants drive 80% of health outcomes. Clinical medicine addresses roughly 20%.
The Community Benefit Gap
Nonprofit hospitals spent $149 billion on community benefits in 2022. The mandate is clear. The vetted, scalable infrastructure to deploy it effectively does not exist.
Why Arts & Health Interventions Haven't Scaled
No organized supply chain. Health systems that want arts partnerships cannot find, vet, and contract with arts organizations at scale.
No physician training pipeline. No CME-accredited arts prescribing curriculum exists in the United States. A doctor never trained to write an arts prescription will not write one.
No reimbursement infrastructure. The funding pathways exist — Schedule H community benefit funds, Medicaid waivers, social prescribing contracts. The organized sector infrastructure to access them does not.
Siloed hospital program: Effective locally. No referral network. No replication framework. No national supply side.
The performing arts sector built the solution over 40 years. No one has connected it — until now.
"Social connection is not a luxury. It is a fundamental human need, and data shows loneliness has real, measurable consequences, and the communities we serve are among the hardest hit." — Paloma Hernandez, President & CEO, Urban Health Plan — World Social Prescribing Day, March 2026
Setting The Table
What the Arts Sector Has Built Over 40 Years
For nearly four decades, the performing arts sector has built a ready-to-deploy asset for healthcare systems and health funders alike. From hospital-based artists and music therapists developing rigorous clinical protocols to dance programs supporting rehabilitation and orchestras advancing Alzheimer's care, this work has generated a proven foundation for better health outcomes across oncology, addiction recovery, and community wellness.
This is not an untapped idea. It is forty years of work that healthcare has not yet fully had the frameworks, evidence standards, or investment structures to access — until now. Across hospitals, schools, senior centers, veterans' programs, rural communities, and community organizations, the field has created a deep, validated, and resilient evidence base. The moment has arrived for healthcare to finally leverage what the arts sector has been building: a powerful, ready-made supply chain driver of health, as essential to well-being as exercise.
Deep Practice, Documented Outcomes
Forty years of performing arts practice produced rigorous documentation — programs, protocols, and outcomes data that constitute a deeply-credible evidence base.
Community-Rooted, Community-Distributed
Arts-in-health programs exist in virtually every community in some way — in hospitals, schools, senior centers, and community organizations. The architecture was always there. It just wasn't connected as infrastructure.
Evidence-Base for a Movement
Forty years of programs, partnerships, and positive outcomes provide the exact evidence base that healthcare systems and policymakers are now urgently seeking.
APAP is the Bridge
The performing arts sector has spent 40 years building exactly what healthcare needs right now — a vetted, community-rooted, non-pharmaceutical intervention network with documented outcomes. Three major frameworks are now converging to make this visible, fundable, and politically powerful. APAP is the only organization positioned to sit at the center of all three.
Clinical Health Infrastructure
Healthcare systems urgently need a vetted, scalable, non-pharmaceutical intervention network. The performing arts sector built it over 40 years. No one has connected it.
Civic Wellness Infrastructure
The Vital Conditions for Health and Well-Being framework — used by state health departments and federal agencies — names arts and culture as essential to belonging and civic muscle: one of seven conditions every person needs to thrive.
Urban Wellness Infrastructure
A new generation of large-scale urban wellness destinations is being built in American cities right now. These facilities are the most natural performing arts presenting circuit that has never been organized. APAP is the supply side they are missing.
These three frames describe a single structural opportunity: the performing arts field stands at the center of the next major investment cycle in human health and wellbeing — clinical, civic, and physical. The infrastructure exists. The science has arrived. The policy window is open.
"If the arts were a pill, we would be taking it every single day." — Prof. Daisy Fancourt, Director, WHO Collaborating Centre on Arts & Health; UNESCO Chair in Arts & Global Health, University College London — Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Transform Our Health, 2026
Don't Build From Scratch What Already Exists
What You're Already Investing In
Healthcare is already moving. Systems are investing in social prescribing, community benefit strategies, and non-pharmaceutical interventions to address loneliness, chronic disease prevention, behavioral health, patient engagement, and healthcare worker burnout.
- The money is already moving. Reimbursement pathways now exist and are being used — not just discussed. Insurance companies are paying for arts prescriptions, and Medicaid waivers are funding social determinants interventions.
- The ROI data is peer-reviewed and citable. A 2025 national study found social prescribing generates a 9:1 return on investment in wellbeing outcomes. Healthcare CXOs, you should take that meeting.
- Two consecutive administrations have made this a federal priority. On opposite sides of the aisle — the Biden Surgeon General declared loneliness a public health epidemic; the Trump HHS and MAHA Commission are calling for non-pharmaceutical, community-based chronic disease prevention. Congress has bipartisan legislation across seven health issue areas. When the policy signal is this consistent across administrations, it is not a trend — it is a structural shift. The policy signal is clear: loneliness, prevention, and community-based care are now structural priorities.
In other words, the opportunity is real — and the investment is already happening.
What You Risk Building Without the Right Partner
The risk is not in starting. The risk is in building the wrong thing from scratch.
Without the right partner, healthcare can end up with social prescribing platforms that lack supply-side relationships, care navigators without arts expertise, community benefit dollars deployed without vetted partners, and medical school curricula written without practitioners at the table. You already are.
What You Lose, Building Without the Right Partner
Building around the arts sector instead of with it means recreating infrastructure that already exists.
The result: Wasted resources, poorer outcomes, and a missed window to get this right while the market is moving.
APAP is the partner that makes your investment work — 40 years of vetted supply-side infrastructure, ready to deploy.
The Infrastructure Being Built
APAP|NYC 2027 is the launch event to build infrastructure that will last.
The National Arts-Health Supply Chain
Credentialing framework, referral directory, contracting templates — the organized infrastructure healthcare systems need to contract with the performing arts sector at scale.
The Physician Training Pipeline
CME-accredited module with NMF. Nursing prescriber training through AACN. A professional pathway that creates sustained, compensated demand for APAP member organizations.
The Advocacy Position
Arts and health as seven bipartisan issues in Congress — loneliness, mental health, aging, veterans, rural health, workforce wellbeing, and community benefit compliance.
The Vital Conditions Positioning
Through the Rippel Foundation, APAP formally positions performing arts as infrastructure for Belonging and Civic Muscle — one of seven conditions every person needs to thrive, adopted by state health departments and federal agencies.
"We know this work to be effective preventive medicine and are thrilled it will also create a new revenue stream for cultural organizations who, for the first time, will be compensated specifically for the health benefits they provide." — Michael J. Bobbitt, Executive Director, Mass Cultural Council — Boston Globe, June 2024
APAP is Building the Arts & Health Innovation Coalition
No single sector can build this alone. That is precisely why it hasn't been built yet — until now. These are the partners already forming the ecosystem APAP|NYC 2027 will accelerate.
Sectors
Health Systems
Health Insurers
Philanthropy
Employers
Advocacy & Policy
The Part They Play
Community benefit mandate + credibility
Actuarial data + reimbursement authority
Field-building capital + convening power
Workforce reach + benefits infrastructure
Bipartisan access + legislative momentum
The Part They Play
vetted, scalable referral network
$4.43 ROI on social isolation costs
Infrastructure that compounds prior grants
The wellness benefit that actually gets used
Seven simultaneous issue-area wins
Anchor Partners
- National Medical Fellowships
- NJPAC + Horizon BCBS
Focus Area
- First CME-accredited arts prescribing curriculum in development. 45,000+ physician alumni. 80 years of medical education credibility.
- $4.5M endowment. 300 participants. 1,500+ arts activities. $110,000 paid directly to local arts organizations. 25,000 people reached through bedside programming at Newark Beth Israel Hospital.
Infrastructure Partners
- National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)
- EpiArts Lab, University of Florida
Focus Area
- Infrastructure, national reimbursement
- Research, biomarker studies
Engaged Collaborations
- Rippel Foundation
- SocialRx
- Therme Group
- Mass General Brigham
- Social Prescribing USA
Focus Area
- Civic frameworks, Vital Conditions
- Social prescribing, 10 states
- Urban wellness — DC, Dallas, NYC, LA, Atlanta
- Health systems, Arts Rx in clinics
- Infrastructure, national reimbursement
"We went to Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield and RWJ Barnabas Health and asked them to endow this work with us. Between the two of them, we fundraised an endowment of about $4.5 million. What I discovered as a fundraiser is that this was a new area that interested funders who might not want to fund the arts as the arts." — John Schreiber, CEO, New Jersey Performing Arts Center — ArtsRx Panel, APAP|NYC 2026
Arts & Health as a Bipartisan Bridge Builder
Arts as a driver of health and wellness gives bothg sectors greater standing with Members who care about health — which is every Member of Congress, through at least six different constituent lenses.
Federal: Key Legislation (119th Congress)
- Improving Measurements for Loneliness & Isolation Act — Reps. Bera (D-CA) & Flood (R-NE); Sens. Ricketts (R-NE) & Hassan (D-NH)
- Youth Mental Health Research Act (H.R. 2587/S.1266) — Reps. Watson Coleman (D-NJ), Kean (R-NJ), Fitzpatrick (R-PA); Sens. Klobuchar (D-MN) & Britt (R-AL)
- SENIOR Act (S.473) — Sens. Scott (R-FL), Smith (D-MN) & Warnock (D-GA)
- National Strategy for Social Connection Act — Sen. Murphy (D-CT) (118th Congress; not yet reintroduced in 119th)
- Older Americans Act Reauthorization (S.2120)
- Creative Forces Program (NEA/DoD/VA) — decade-long federal validation of arts-based therapies for veterans; active in 119th Congress appropriations
- Health Investment Zones Act (S.3840) — Rural health infrastructure
- Pursuing Equity in Mental Health Act (S.1448/H.R.2904) — Youth of color (Democratic-led; no Republican co-sponsors)
Champions on Both Sides of the Aisle
- Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) — Youth mental health
- Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) — Youth mental health
- Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) — Community health
- Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) — Arts & health, veterans
- Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) — Social connection
- Rep. Mike Bost (R-IL) — Veterans' Affairs Chair
- Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-CA) — Physician-legislator, health equity
- Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) — Bipartisan mental health
- Rep. Mike Flood (R-NE) — Rural/heartland loneliness
State: Where It's Already Law or Policy
- Massachusetts — First statewide arts prescription program (2024). Mass Cultural Council + SocialRx (formerly Art Pharmacy) + Mass General Brigham. Two insurers paying for arts prescriptions.
- New Jersey — NJPAC secured a seven-figure endowment from Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield and RWJBarnabas Health. Model for healthcare-arts institutional partnership.
- New York — NYC Health + Hospitals arts-in-health programs embedded in clinical settings. State aging policy includes creative arts programming.
- Minnesota — State arts board arts-health integration. Mayo Clinic arts program. Strong rural arts-health infrastructure.
- California — Arts in corrections, aging, and community health embedded in state health policy. Arts equity programs tied to SDOH frameworks.
- Connecticut — Arts and health integration in community health centers. Sen. Murphy's Social Connection Act reflects state-level momentum.
- UK/NHS (International Validator) — Social prescribing nationally embedded in primary care. 9:1 ROI documented in peer-reviewed national study (2025). The model the US is now replicating.
In APAP, One Partnership, Massive Reach
Break into a $1.2 trillion arts and culture market with 70 years of institutional trust and unmatched convening power behind you. Your sponsorship flows through APAP's multiple overlapping ecosystems — each with its own massive reach — multiplying your brand's presence far beyond what any single partnership can deliver.
Conference & Programming
APAP|NYC 2027 & APAP 70th Anniversary, "Welcoming the New, Becoming the Next" Theme
70 Years of Trust
70th Anniversary Gala | 501(c)(3) Nonprofit | 4★ Charity Navigator | GuideStar Gold Seal | 47 ArtsForward Grants
5,000+ Members & Professionals
Presenters, venues, artists, agents, and managers across the U.S., with their own deep community impact
150+ Field Partner Organizations
Regional arts service organizations, state arts agencies, and local presenting networks amplify our reach through their outsized impact.
34 International Partners
Partnerships with Busan Performing Arts Marketplace, Scottland's Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Canada Mexico, and more.
3,000+ Conference Delegates
Decision-makers from every U.S. state, gathered each January in NYC
Expo & Showcasing
$150B+ economic engine, with real-time programming booked across the U.S.
1,000 Showcase Performances
Over 5 days each January at APAP|NYC, from Brooklyn, to Midtown, to Harlem
50,000 Sq. Ft. Expo Hall
100% of NYC Hilton Midtown's exhibit space, as APAP's real-time program booking, economic engine
JanArtsNYC Ecosystem
APAP|NYC anchors JanArtsNYC — a citywide festival drawing 45,000+ attendees across New York City each January.
NYC Mayor's Office
APAP is the founding anchor of JanArtsNYC, co-created with the NYC Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME)
45,000+ Attendees
APAP|NYC launched globalFEST & Under The Radar. Each headlines JanArtsNYC with Out-FRONT! Festival, Lincoln Center's Jazz Congress, NYC Winter JazzFest, PROTOTYPE Festival, and more.
The Halo Effect: 50M+ People Reached Annually
These aren't separate audiences. Their network reach and digital footprint overlap, flow into each other, and through APAP|NYC and APAP's year-round programming. That's the APAP's network halo effect. And it adds up, amplified by speaker, media, and partner networks. APAP|NYC 2026 included the National Endowment for the Arts, La Chanze, Mark Bamuthi Joseph, National Medical Fellowships, ONX, Capacity Interactive, Coffee With Ken, and more.
Return on Investment
Documented Arts & Health Returns
Clinical / Healthcare Savings
- $4.43 healthcare cost return per dollar invested in social prescribing
- 42% reduction in primary care visits
- 24% reduction in emergency department use
Employer & Institutional Markets
- $60B annual employer wellness market
- $149B spent annually by nonprofit hospitals on community benefits
- 4:1 ROI on arts prescriptions vs. gym memberships and meditation apps
Wellbeing Outcomes
- 9:1 return on investment in wellbeing outcomes (2025 peer-reviewed)
- 54.6% increase in arts participation in One Nation One Project
What Partners Gain Partnering with APAP
Measurable Chain of Impact
Communities reached, performances enabled, audience demographics, press attributions, and a year-end impact report formatted for board presentations, ESG, and CSR reporting.
Narrative Ownership
Your organization's name inseparable from the moment the performing arts field publicly claimed arts and health as its mandate.
Reputational Insulation
Arts and health is one of the few investment categories with genuine bipartisan support in a polarized landscape.
Brand Narrative Shift
From donor to enabler. From funder to infrastructure builder. From CSR line item to strategic health partner.
APAP|NYC Theme: "Welcoming the New, Becoming the Next"
In 2027, APAP marks seven decades of connecting the performing arts to communities, building civic infrastructure, and sustaining the performing arts ecosystem. APAP|NYC 2027 is not a birthday party. It's an inflection point — and we're using it to build what the next 70 years need.
APAP|NYC 2027 and the 70th Anniversary
What we're building together, drawing on 70 years of civic infrastructure.
70th Anniversary Gala
The signature evening event. Plenaries, performance showcases, and the APAP Honors ceremony. Named pillar sponsorships available.
Arts & Civic Trust Hub
Building on APAP's advocacy and strategy resources for the performing arts field and partnerships with Mediators Foundation, Better Together America, and other partners.
Arts & Health Track
Building directly on the ArtsRx panel from APAP|NYC 2026 — the field's most-attended session — the 2027 Arts & Health track is a named, fully produced programming pillar. Following are illustrative programming examples.
PLENARY: "From the Margins to the Mandate: Arts, Health, and the Next American Infrastructure"
An opening plenary bringing together health system leaders, policymakers, and performing arts executives to declare arts & health the next major American infrastructure investment.
SESSION: "Training the Next Generation of Arts-Prescribing Physicians"
National Medical Fellowships and the EpiArts Lab unveil the first CME-accredited arts prescribing curriculum — with a live enrollment launch for physician and nursing practitioners.
SESSION: "Loneliness, Congress, and the Arts: A Bipartisan Policy Briefing"
Members of Congress and senior staff join APAP for a live legislative briefing on seven active issue areas where arts and health has bipartisan traction in the 119th Congress.
SESSION: "The New Community Benefit: What Hospital CEOs Need to Know"
Health system leaders, arts presenters, and policy experts on how performing arts organizations qualify as vetted community benefit partners under IRS Schedule H.
SESSION: "Prescribing the Arts: From Pilot to National Network"
How NJPAC, Mass General Brigham, and SocialRx built the first insurer-funded arts prescription programs — and what it takes to replicate them nationally.
"That awe, wonder and beauty promote healthier levels of cytokines suggests the things we do to experience these emotions — a walk in nature, losing oneself in music, beholding art — has a direct influence upon health and life expectancy." — Dr. Dacher Keltner, Professor of Psychology, UC Berkeley
Choose Your Level of Partnership
Three tiers. One conference. One 70th anniversary. Category exclusivity is first-come — once a sector is claimed at the Founding Partner level, it is closed.
Tier 1 — Founding Partner
$100K+
Year-round integration: advocacy hub, digital series, newsletters, video series. Full conference footprint. 70th Anniversary Gala named pillar. Category exclusivity. The partner whose name is inseparable from APAP's 70th year and arts-health mandate.
Tier 2 — Lead Partner
$50K–$100K
Headliner moments: 70th Anniversary Gala, plenaries, performance showcases, 50K sq. ft. Expo. Named track sponsorship. Branded sessions. Full conference footprint. Thought leadership association.
Tier 3 — Supporting Partner
$25K–$50K
Named track sponsorship (Arts & Health, ArtsRx, Arts & Civic Trust), branded APAP sessions, Expo presence, networking events, ESG impact reporting. The right entry point for organizations piloting arts-health partnership before scaling.
Every partnership includes a robust measurement framework — communities reached, performances enabled, audience demographics, press and media attributions, and a year-end impact report formatted for board presentations, ESG, and CSR reporting.
"At Henry Ford Health, we start with a belief that our role is to elevate the health of the communities we serve. If you really think about the full meaning of elevating the health of the community, you have to be involved in more than just providing world class care; you have to focus on other environmental factors that have an impact on health." — Bob Riney, CEO, Henry Ford Health — Becker's Hospital Review, September 2025
The Ask: Fund the Infrastructure
Last week, Members of Congress and their senior staff asked for everything APAP has on arts and health — not because it's interesting, but because it solves problems their constituents need solved and builds bridges across an aisle that has very few left. This is the moment, and APAP|NYC 2027 is the activation point.
We are asking [Prospect Name] to be a partner in moving arts and health from proof of concept to national infrastructure, by funding policy sessions, learning tracks, and cross-sector convenings at APAP|NYC 2027 and the APAP 70th Anniversary Gala. Your investment is not just a sponsorship. It's a defined, named role in the cultural sector's most consequential pivot in a generation: from the margins of healthcare to the center of how communities move from surviving to thriving.
"Working with UNESCO, the WHO can imagine a day in the not too distant future where both organizations jointly present evidence with relevant policy recommendations to a combined convening of ministers of health and culture, ushering in a new era of investment in the arts, culture, and creativity, not simply for its own sake or the creative economy, but as an investment in the health of communities." — Christopher Bailey, Arts and Health Lead, World Health Organization
The Partnership Model: Who Are the Others?
Who else brings value and impact to a portfolio of cross-sector institutional partnerships?
Clinical Education
National Medical Fellowships — 80 years of credibility, 45,000+ physician alumni, CME and medical education pipeline.
American Association of Colleges of Nursing — 2021 Essentials already require arts and humanities knowledge; reaches nursing prescribers at scale.
American Association of Nurse Practitioners — frontline prescribers in social determinants frameworks.
Social Work & Link Workers
Council on Social Work Education — accredits 750+ programs; getting arts prescription into accreditation standards builds the link-worker pipeline.
National Association of Social Workers — controls continuing education standards for 130,000+ social workers nationally.
Behavioral Health Networks
National Council for Mental Wellbeing — 3,400+ community mental health centers and substance use programs serving 10 million people annually. A direct pathway to facilities that could become both presenters of and referrers to arts programming.
Aging & Senior Care
LeadingAge — 5,000+ nonprofit aging services providers serving 2 million older adults annually. The single largest distributed health-setting venue category where performing arts touring infrastructure is currently absent at scale.
Public Health Systems
National Association of County and City Health Officials — represents local health departments that administer SAMHSA grants, manage opioid settlement funds, and conduct community health needs assessments.
National Association of Community Health Centers — 31 million patients across federally qualified health centers.
Employer Wellness
Health Transformation Alliance and Business Group on Health — represent large employers managing health benefits for tens of millions of workers. Employee wellness is a $60B annual market. Arts programming for workforce wellbeing is an underutilized category.
Health Systems & Hospitals
American Hospital Association — community benefit requirements create a direct funding pathway for arts-health programming.
Social Prescribing USA — the emerging national infrastructure for arts and social prescribing reimbursement.
The pattern across all of these is the same as NMF: PAA brings the arts infrastructure, the institutional partner brings sector-specific credibility and access. The PAA role is to identify, broker, and sustain these partnerships — ensuring curriculum, protocols, and referral standards reflect the performing arts sector's expertise.
APAP|NYC 2027