Research & Policy

Art Therapy Today provides readers with the most up-to-date information about The American Art Therapy Association's (AATA) activities, current news related to the art therapy profession, and announcements pertaining to events or opportunities provided by the AATA.

People affected by rare diseases often face extraordinary barriers. They can find it difficult to get the right diagnosis, expert advice or treatment and support. It’s challenging – especially when they are trying to cope with the uncertainty of an often progressive, devastating and debilitating disease. But the complexity of these conditions, and the small number of patients affected, means this area of research doesn’t always attract the greatest interest.

On behalf of our friends at The British Association of Art Therapists, we are delighted to direct our readers to a special online issue of the Huffington Post UK, edited by Her Royal Highness, the Duchess of Cambridge, for the UK's Children's Mental Health Week. As part of this issue, Mary Rose Brady, BAAT Director of Operations, authored an article on art therapy and children's mental health.

The desire and necessity to improve seniors’ healthcare experience presents both opportunity and motivation for improved collaboration between acute and senior care providers. Recently a roundtable brought together stakeholders from strategic and geographic aligned acute care and senior living organizations to work collaboratively together to answer the question “How can hospitals and senior living providers work better together?”

“Never before has the world had a document that so eloquently unites ethics and environmental stewardship. That is why Laudato Si was the most significant environmental event of 2015.”

To mark National Cancer Prevention Month, the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation today announced eight grants totaling nearly $11.5 million that will help make lung and skin cancer screening programs, care and patient support more accessible to underserved populations.

More than 80 leading international pharmaceutical, generics, diagnostics and biotechnology companies, as well as key industry bodies, have come together to call on governments and industry to work in parallel in taking comprehensive action against drug-resistant infections – so-called ‘superbugs’ – with a joint declaration launched today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The statement sets out for the first time how governments and industry need to work together to support sustained investment in the new products needed to beat the challenges of rising drug resistance. Read more here: http://ow.ly/XmTlB

In honor of its broad-based efforts to partner with underserved local communities to improve health, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) is the recipient of the 2015 Foster G. McGaw Prize for Excellence in Community Service, one of the most esteemed community service honors in healthcare.

I spent time thinking back on the most significant environmental story of 2015. For many, it may have been COP21 and the climate change agreement adopted by the participating countries. By many metrics, that’s probably the right answer. For me though, the publication of Laudato Si (props to anyone who recognized Pope Francis’s words last week) stands out a bit more.