Mapping Creative Health Assets: Mobilising Arts-based Interventions to Tackle Health Inequalities in Staffordshire
Transdisciplinary placement
Healthy Places, Healthy Planet, Health Inequalities
PHRESH, University of Birmingham
Supervisors
Professor Peymane Adab (University of Birmingham), Professor Priya Paudyal (Keele University)
Research Interests
Dr Rachel Marsden is a curator, researcher and educator. Research interests comprise practice-research and creative methods; inclusive teaching, learning and pedagogies; ethics of care and care practices. This work is informed by her role as Senior Lecturer in Academic Practice at University of the Arts London (UAL, part-time), alongside a professional practice in arts and creative health; lived experience of dynamic disability. She is also Regional Champion (West Midlands, voluntary) for the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance (CHWA). Through the NIHR SPHR Transdisciplinary Placement, Rachel aims to identify and explore VCFSE organisations delivering arts-based interventions with potential health impacts to understand more about the challenges faced and approaches used to tackle and reduce health inequalities, and how they respond to hyperlocal and community needs in the region. She sees her role as advocacy in support of a growing creative health sector, whilst giving agency to its potential for co-creation, co-production and place-making with communities.
Educational Background
BA (Hons) Fine Art MA Art Museum and Gallery Studies MEd Academic Practice in Higher Education PhD “The Transcultural Curator: Translating Networked Curatorial Practices in the Chinese Context since 1980”,
Publications
Marsden R. Creative health assets in Staffordshire: Harnessing community power to tackle health inequalities. Perspectives in Public Health. 2026;0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/17579139261462489
