Social Prescribing in US: A Pilot Program Demonstrates Positive Outcomes for Patients, Providers, and Community Organizations

Social Prescription in US: A Pilot Program Demonstrates Positive Outcomes for Patients, Providers, and Community Organizations

Culture Rx is a revolutionary social prescribing program in the United States.  Adapted from a healthcare model currently being used in many countries around the world to bring community-based services to address the health and well-being needs of individuals, Culture Rx is the first program of its type to launch in the U.S.  An article summarizing the results of this pilot program was first published in the January 2023 issue of Frontiers in Public Health.

This pilot program was initiated in 2020 through the support of Mass Cultural Council, a Massachusetts state agency that promotes community arts, humanities, and sciences.  Through this program, funding was provided to community cultural organizations so that they could develop partnerships with healthcare providers and to cover the costs of prescribed services.  Twelve cultural organizations and twenty healthcare providers partnered in this pilot program where healthcare providers prescribed cultural experiences to support their patients' health.  

Data collected from individual participants, staff from cultural organizations, and prescribing healthcare providers demonstrated a multitude of positive impacts of this program, including:

Participants

• Reported that they enjoyed their experiences

• Hoped and intended to repeat their cultural experiences

• Viewed these activities as benefiting their wellbeing

• Noted feelings of reduced stress, greater enjoyment, relaxation, and more energy

• No adverse effects were reported

Cultural Organizations

• Observed that participants demonstrated greater connection with others

• Noted improvements in the mood of participants

Healthcare Providers

• Appreciated having a positive intervention to offer their patients

• Felt like this partnership gave them additional tools to support their patient’s needs

• Noted a positive impact on their own well-being and sense of work satisfaction

• Observed that patients demonstrated positive effects on their self-esteem, self-efficacy, and mobility

• Improved physician-patient dynamic by giving providers another way to connect and communicate with their patients

• Appreciated being able to direct patients to specific cultural experiences within the community, as opposed to making general recommendations that the patient is left to pursue completely on their own

While the positive impact of this program is clear across all three populations - patients, community organizations, and healthcare providers - a few barriers and challenges were identified through this study.  In particular, transportation and parking was a limitation.  While digital options were sometimes offered and could be an alternative to address the transportation issues, this still excludes people with limited digital access or technological know-how.  Other barriers included concerns related to a sense of belonging, language differences, and inclusivity.  

Certainly while this pilot program demonstrates great advances in social prescribing programs in the United States, it also offers areas of improvement for increased accessibility and inclusivity as we continue to explore the most successful ways to influence our current healthcare paradigm to meet the holistic needs of patients, communities, and healthcare providers.

Resources

Golden TL, Maier Lokuta A, Mohanty A, Tiedemann A, Ng TWC, Mendu M, Morgan N, Kuge MN, Brinza T. Social prescription in the US: A pilot evaluation of Mass Cultural Council's "CultureRx". Front Public Health. 2023 Jan 19;10:1016136. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.1016136. PMID: 36743160; PMCID: PMC9892638.