Heritage interventions to improve mental health and wellbeing: Developing a programme theory through a realist-informed review

Heritage projects to support mental health and wellbeing have become increasingly popular over the last few years, with heritage projects being socially prescribed. Perhaps due to increasing awareness and offerings, there is an assumption that heritage projects do indeed improve mental health and wellbeing. However, the evidence base is relatively scant in this area, just as one might expect for a relatively new intervention, and so we are not yet confident of the assumed outcomes, at least from the point of demonstrable, evidenced impact. To an even lesser extent are we informed as to the how and why heritage projects may create opportunity for change and improvement in mental health and wellbeing. To this end, a Realist-informed Review of the current literature was performed to attempt to answer who experiences change through heritage, how, and why.