FEASIBILITY AND PRELIMINARY OUTCOMES FROM A PILOTED AMERICAN INDIAN ELDER CREATIVE CULTURAL ARTS PROGRAM

In 2016, we partnered with an American Indian tribe to develop, implement, and evaluate a creative cultural arts program for older adults. With the Community Advisory Board, we determined key components of the program, including dose, content, tribal artist instructors, and research procedures. The cultural arts program met twice a week for two hours for six weeks covering gourd masks, stamp pottery, basket weaving, and moccasins. To examine participant outcomes, we used a pre/posttest with nonequivalent groups design. We successfully recruited 15 study participants from the regular tribal senior center’s attendees (intervention group n=9; control group n=6). We detected an increase in cultural arts knowledge in the intervention group (p = 0.04). Our qualitative program participant and instructor feedback was positive. Developing robust evidence becomes central to translating promising programs into sustainable programs and contribute to the scaling up of creative arts interventions to achieve public health impacts.