Method & transparency
Methods and inclusion criteria
An editorially curated research resource. This edition is an audit and reorganisation of the existing repository, not a new systematic review.
Scope
The core subject is receptive exposure to installed visual art in healthcare: murals, paintings, photographs, sculpture and related works. “Passive” describes the absence of art-making; it does not mean viewers are emotionally or intellectually inactive.
Art-making and art therapy are outside the core scope. A guided gallery visit remains receptive viewing, but differs from ambient exposure. Responsive installations, sound, movement and wider landscape design are identified as additional components.
Inclusion and scope rules
The core scope is research on receiving or viewing installed visual art in healthcare. Relevant populations include patients, staff and visitors; relevant outcomes include experience, wellbeing, stress, pain and perceptions of the environment. Eligibility does not depend on a favourable result.
- Core evidence: studies and reviews of visual art encountered in healthcare settings.
- Adjacent evidence: museum or gallery viewing, facilitated encounters and multi-component interventions. These are labelled because they differ from ambient exposure.
- Context: theory, mechanisms, policy, guidance and research-gap records. These are not presented as additional health-outcome trials.
- Outside the core scope: art-making, art therapy, and activities centred on music, performance or creative participation. Broader retained sources are identified as context rather than direct evidence for installed visual art.
- Practice records: commissioned or donated artworks and institutional programmes are documented separately from research findings.
These rules describe the repository’s editorial scope. This edition applies them to the inherited collection; it does not represent a new prospective search or a complete census of eligible studies.
Classification
Each record identifies its relevance, evidence type, design, sample or scope, finding and limitation. “Healthcare art” describes relevance to the topic, not a high confidence rating. Reviews, trials, observational studies, theory and institutional accounts answer different questions.
The earlier A–E scale mixed descriptions of the literature, causal evidence and practice. It has been retired from the public display. Original grades remain in the downloadable data as historical metadata, not current ratings. This is not the formal GRADE system.
Counts and overlap
The register contains 55 records, with original IDs preserved; PAH-020 was absent in the supplied register. Several records refer to the same publication, and reviews may include trials listed separately. The 18 work records and 27 case summaries also overlap. Neither category is a count of health-outcome studies.
Verification, dates and limits
Edition 4.1 changes the presentation and transparency of the September 2026 audit. It does not claim a new literature search. Each research record displays its editorial review date and verification status; the publication year is shown separately.
The audit reviewed all existing pages, register records and supplied report sections. It checked key disputed claims against primary or author-institution sources and checked the accessibility of cited URLs. An accessible page does not verify every assertion made about it.
Some sources could not be fully accessed or independently re-extracted. Each research record identifies whether its result received a fresh source check or its original citation was retained. Source links may change, and historical installation records do not guarantee current access.
The material is weighted towards English-language and UK/US sources. No comprehensive global search, duplicate independent screening, formal risk-of-bias assessment or exhaustive census of hospital sculpture is claimed.
Edition 4.1: repository revision
Replaced the promotional homepage with research search, removed founder artwork from the homepage and social metadata, made limitations visible beside findings, standardised finding labels, corrected evidence-type labels for PAH-001, PAH-003, PAH-008, PAH-009 and PAH-019 to match their recorded designs, expanded inclusion and disclosure information, and increased text contrast throughout. The 55 research/context records, 18 works, 27 institutional cases and original citation IDs are retained.
Research corrections retained from Edition 4.0
- PAH-004: corrected the visitor count to 534, applying the journal’s April 2026 correction.
- PAH-016: added the trial’s finding: better perceptions of the environment, with no detected psychological or clinical difference.
- PAH-031: distinguished 525 responses from the 327 survey responses and retained the preprint and cross-sectional limitations.
- PAH-042: aligned the summary with the review’s conclusion about eudemonic wellbeing and lack of strong support for other outcomes.
- W-14: identified Emma Rodgers’s sculpture as New Life (2013), outside the Wirral main entrance, rather than an untitled indoor Liverpool work.
- Woodhull: removed the restoration story belonging to a different Keith Haring mural in Amsterdam.
- Eskenazi / Kaiser: separated Rob Ley’s May/September at Eskenazi from Double Exposure at Kaiser Permanente, Dublin.
- Houston: separated the broader Texas Medical Center district from MD Anderson-specific claims.
- Clinical and financial claims: removed unsupported generalisations about inflammation, dopamine, length of stay, reimbursement and return on investment.
- Evaluation: removed the arbitrary 30-person minimum and clarified measurement timing, comparison, oversight and instrument suitability.
Last editorial audit: 9 September 2026. Corrections and proposed additions can be sent to research@publicart.health, with a citation and primary-source link.