london regular visits to museums the theatre concerts and art galleries may be associated with a longer life according to a study of older adults in the ukthe finding published in the bmj journal is important given the focus on social prescribing schemes that refer people to community arts activities to improve their health and wellbeing the researchers saidprevious studies have found that engaging with the arts can improve a persons physical and mental wellbeing including depression dementia chronic pain and frailty they saidhowever whether arts engagement can improve survival remains unclearthe researchers at university college london in the uk set out to explore the association between different frequencies of arts engagement and mortalitytheir findings are based on data from more than 6000 adults in the uk aged 50 years and over who were taking part in the english longitudinal study of ageing elsafrequency of arts activities including going to the theatre concerts opera museums art galleries and exhibitions was measured at the start of the study in 20045participants were then followed up for an average of 12 years during which time deaths were recorded using the uk national health service nhs mortality dataafter taking account of a range of economic health and social factors the researchers found that people who engaged in arts activities once or twice a year had a 14 per cent lower risk of dying at any time during the followup period than those who never engagedpeople who engaged in arts activities more frequently every few months or more had a 31 per cent lower risk of dying the study foundthis protective association was largely explained by differences in cognition thinking and understanding mental health and physical activity levels among those who did and did not engage in the artshowever results were maintained independent of these and other factors such as mobility problems deprivation wealth and retirement the researchers saidthis is an observational study so cant establish cause and the researchers acknowledge the limitations of measuring cultural engagement at only one point in time