Abstract

Social prescribing is the inclusion of social, and especially artistic and cultural, activities to complement pathways for health promotion, and disease prevention, management: treatment is based on a biopsychosocial view of health. In this view, it is not only biophysical factors that determine people’s well-being and health, but also a complex system of social determinants, which must be considered in care strategies. Practiced in the United Kingdom as part of primary care physicians’ practice since the mid-1990s, and widespread in other countries, such as Canada, Belgium, and New Zealand, social prescribing is now also recommended by the WHO World Health Organization, which released a manual in late 2023 to facilitate its adoption. As of 2024 in manual is also available in Italian.