Arts
&Well-Being

Building new bridges to the arts

By Johnny Knollwood

We all know that the arts can make us feel good.

You can probably remember times you’ve felt uplifted by your favorite song, or gone out dancing to unwind after a long day of work. 

At the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), the benefits of engaging with the arts are becoming clearer each day. 

And they’re reaching more people, too.

In 2023, NJPAC’s Arts & Well Being department launched ArtsRx, a pilot arts-on-prescription program,  the first of its kind in New Jersey, and one of only a few in the nation.

The program is inspired by research showing that attending a performance once or twice a month doesn’t just feel good; it can impact our health as much as exercising for one or two hours a week. Students who engage in the arts are less likely to experience depression and substance abuse problems.

Arts on prescription is exactly what it sounds like: Healthcare organizations or providers “prescribe” a six-month course of participation in arts events, from concerts to museum tours to glass blowing workshops, to folks who could use the boost to their physical and mental well-being that participation in the arts has been shown to provide.

And through ArtsRx, these arts events are offered to participants free of charge.

The program is the product of a unique partnership between NJPAC, a cohort of Greater Newark arts organizations, and healthcare entities including insurance provider Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey (Horizon) and the Newark Department of Public Health (NDPH).

“This partnership has introduced a non-traditional way of addressing stress and disorder, anxiety and depression and PTSD, that many of our patients are experiencing on one level or another,” says Ketlen Baptiste-Alsbrook, the City of Newark’s Director of Health and Community Wellness. 

A concert or an afternoon spent at a museum may sound like the easiest kind of medicine to take. But many barriers, including cost, transportation requirements, and a lack of free time, can keep patients from regularly participating in arts events. ArtsRx tries to serve as a bridge across those barriers.

How it works
Patients are referred to the program by one of several participating community organizations, including Horizon, the NDPH, RWJBarnabas Health, and Rutgers University-Newark. Each patient works with an NJPAC ArtsRx Coordinator to choose six arts programs they’d like to attend or take part in over a period of six months. Participants can choose to engage in activities offered by more than a dozen community organizations, including performances at NJPAC or Symphony Hall, visits to the Montclair Art Museum, or classes at dance studios or at GlassRoots, a glass-blowing studio in downtown Newark.

Impact
As of June 2026, the program has served nearly 350 patients and has more than  100 active participants currently enrolled. 

“We have this woman who came and did a flame class. She said she experiences a lot of pain,” says Carol Losos, Executive Director of GlassRoots. “When she comes in here, she’s in pain — but when she’s doing the work here, the pain goes away.” 

Learn More
You can learn more about the ArtsRx program at https://www.njpac.org/

Johnny Knollwood is a guitarist and singer-songwriter. He serves as an NJPAC Arts & Well-Being artist-in-residence at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center; you can find him singing and playing at patients’ bedsides in the pediatric unit.