Arts engagement and newcomer mental wellness: a scoping review of community-based approaches in Canada
Esther-Joelle Asare1,2, Andrea Charise2, Mariangela Castro Arteaga3,4
1School of Public Health and Social Policy, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.
Background:
Immigration drives approximately 75% of Canada's population growth. While demographic impacts of immigration are well studied, other aspects like social wellness - described by concepts such as belonging, inclusion, and other health-adjacent phenomena - remain underexplored. Given data indicating positive perceptions of arts engagement in Canadian society, community-engaged arts programs offer promising approaches for advancing newcomer mental wellness research and practice.
Methods:
This scoping review examined the impact of arts engagement initiatives in community that address newcomer mental wellness in Canada. A comprehensive search strategy was developed in consultation with a research librarian to identify peer-reviewed studies published between 2000 and 2026.
Results:
1265 records were retrieved from six databases and supplementary searches; 60 met inclusion criteria. In addition to a baseline summary of study characteristics (arts modalities, organization type, geographic distribution, etc.), four top-level themes were identified to describe how community arts support newcomer mental wellness in Canada: by negotiating difference and displacement; serving as accessible support infrastructure; fostering collective, relational identity formation; and sustaining future-oriented forms of mental wellness.
Conclusions:
Framed through concepts including cultural humility and cultural brokering, findings indicate that community arts constitute a culturally responsive, relational, and future-oriented mental wellness practice that operates across personal, communal, and structural dimensions of settlement. Recommendations include 1) broader, multi-sectoral recognition of community arts engagement as a key component of newcomer wellness infrastructure, supported by 2) long-term, community-led partnerships between researchers, artists, and settlement organizations, to enable 3) longitudinal impact studies of community arts for newcomer populations.
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