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Two students carve their own rubber stamps at a Crafts Center class.

ArtsRx

Art + Wellness Initiative > ArtsRx

Engaging students in arts experiences to impact wellbeing.

ArtsRx is an arts prescribing initiative, and part of Arts NC State’s Art + Wellness Research Collective. NC State students will be able to self-prescribe by selecting from ArtsRx programming at the Crafts Center, that is free to attend with materials and instruction provided. Additionally, Arts NC State collaborates with student-facing units, such as NC State’s Counseling Center, so that students can be referred to ArtsRx programming.

Arts NC State provides students with arts engagement that will improve student mental health outcomes, as assessed through an adapted PERMA+ survey administered at the end of each ArtsRx session. The PERMA+ instrument measures positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment.

Student mental health data

Arts engagement has been proven to be an effective intervention to improve student mental health. Improvement in key areas like loneliness, isolation, stress, anxiety, and depression. (SocialRx 2025)

60% of college students currently meet the criteria for at least one mental health challenge

90% of counseling center directors report a significant rise in students seeking support services

39% of students report having experienced loneliness within the previous day

The Crafts Center will be the permanent site for ArtsRx

With a studio dedicated to free ArtsRx programming, the Crafts Center’s student teaching artist fellows will be training in mental health first aid and will teach ArtsRx classes to NC State students.

Students work on a painting during a class at the Craft Center in Thompson. Photo by Marc Hall
Students work on a painting during a class at the Craft Center in Thompson. Photo by Marc Hall

ArtsRx is an intervention that uses the arts as a vehicle for therapeutic impacts inherent in arts engagement.

The effects of arts engagement on mental health and wellbeing is widely studied, well researched, and indicates positive effects on personal development and growth, and sense of happiness and satisfaction with life  (see NORC’s “Outcomes of Arts Engagement for Individuals and Communities”).