A Rural City Embraces Art as a Prescription for Community Health

There may be more people in the U.S. than ever before, but more than half feel isolated and lonely. Social connection is a significant factor in both mental and physical health; the impact of isolation is greater than that of obesity or physical inactivity.

Rhinelander, Wis., a city of 8,000 surrounded by forest and lakes, is using art to address this public health concern. Social isolation is a problem across all age groups in Rhinelander, says City Council chair Carrie Mikalauski. She sees this firsthand in her day job in the city’s protective services unit, from ailing seniors shut in at home to young people at loose ends in a rural community.

Art has helped communities connect and collaborate throughout history, says Jill Sonke, who directs research at the University of Florida’s Center for Arts in Medicine. Art therapy is a well-established “prescription” for individual patients, but the notion that participation in the arts might improve community and population health is relatively new.

Rhinelander got a chance to test the idea in real time when Over It, a youth-led community group, began to advocate for a skate park to remedy isolation among local young people in 2021. Some young people who didn’t play team sports felt that the community didn't see or value them, says Mikalauski, and they lacked places to connect with others. The park would give them a place to gather and share their skills.

Partly as a result of their efforts, the rural city won a grant from a national arts and health initiative called One Nation/One Project (ONOP). The grant has enabled the city to run a host of new projects — in collaboration with local arts organization ArtStart — aiming to connect community members through art as a way of improving public health.

Repairing the Social Fabric

The national arts initiative One Nation/One Project was born post-pandemic with the hope that it could help revive communities by spurring collaboration between municipalities, arts organizations, public health offices and the health sector, says Clyde Valentín, co-artistic director for ONOP. Valentín and his colleagues took inspiration from a Depression-era Federal Theatre Project created to give work to stage artists. The project organized stage performances of an adaptation of the Sinclair Lewis novel It Can’t Happen Here in 21 cities on the same night in 1936.

ONOP asked 18 cities to do something similar: to “simultaneously premiere distinct, collaborative, and participatory art works” on July 27, 2024. The only guideline was creating around the prompt “No Place Like Home.”

Rhinelander’s July 27 event, “Push Against Loneliness,” began with a Skate Jam. This was followed by a “March Against Social Isolation” to the site of an interactive public art piece, a sculpture created by local artists. Along the the route to the sculpture, residents experienced a "poem" comprised of graphic works made by community members in answer to the question, “What would you say to someone you’ve lost connection with?”

The sculpture, a curved bench, is covered with reflective material, “so you can reflect on things,” Mikalauski says. When a seated person leans back and lays their head on the sculpture, they hear recordings of community members talking about social isolation, and their unspoken messages to friends and family lost to time and distance.

“It's been very apparent to me that the Northwoods is lacking in mental health-care availability and resources," says Norma Dycus Pennycuff, who helped collect the stories and create the sculpture. "Anything I can do to kind of support [mental health,] and there's art, it's kind of like the best of both worlds.”

Community members and staff of local organizations were recruited as “map makers” to ensure all voices were heard during the planning process, and to help execute what was planned. “We were able to get folks from different agencies, community members from all sectors, youth through elderly,” says Mikalauski. Marshfield Clinic Health Systems, which provides primary and specialty care in Rhinelander, also worked with the city and local nonprofit ArtStart.

The work improved community cohesiveness, says Mikalauski. It brought together organizations within the local health-care system that don't normally work with each other. People within entities such as the county health department and the county aging and disability and resource center formed new relationships and have continued to lean on each other in ways they didn't before the Push Against Loneliness.

The push behind the July 27 event also brought momentum to ArtStart’s existing programs and created opportunities for new ones.

Art and Autism

The ONOP project opened the door for thinking about other partnerships with social services and health-care providers, says Melinda Childs, community and cultural development director for ArtStart. “We each have something to offer each other — how can we explore that?” Childs says. “Creative solutions to build community and bring people together are important in a whole new way post-election.”

The nonprofit, located in a historic building gifted to it by the city, has become the host site for sober events led by city social workers. It’s bringing artists to care facilities to make art with seniors and caregivers as a member of the SPARK! alliance, a national program for persons with early to mid-stage memory loss and those who care for them.

One of Mikalauski’s fellow councilmembers, Tom Barnett, owns an art studio in town and has been trained to work with people on the autism spectrum. Winters are long in Rhinelander, he says, with little for young people to do. They often live miles apart. Depression is common (it’s also four times more likely among those with autism).

At present, Barnett works with about 15 young people through the city’s Children’s Long-Term Support Program. “We talk about how they’re feeling and what kind of art we want to create that day,” he says. “I try to tell them that art is a fantastic gateway to telling people how you’re feeling without having to actually tell them.”

Some of his protégés discover an interest in art. Whether this happens or not, making art consistently helps them break out of their shells, Barnett says.
Sonke is leading the evaluation of the impact of One Nation/One Project. A report, expected in the spring, will cover what was measured, what was found and what could be a model for future work. Public health agencies are taking the potential for art and cultural resources to reduce isolation and loneliness seriously, she says. More than 33 countries have established systems that draw on art, culture, nature, volunteering and other social resources through prescriptions and referrals.

It's a critical moment for the public health system and the general population to recognize participation in the arts as a health behavior, Sonke says. “Like eating well, exercising or wearing a seat belt, participating in the arts is just good for our health.”