Dear SHN participants,

We wanted to share some important news with you. Unfortunately, the NEA terminated our Sound Heath Network cooperative agreement, effective May 31, 2025. Thank you so much for all your efforts over the past five years. We enjoyed each step of the way! Below is guidance that we received from the NEA:

  • In March 2025, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) was informed by the National Institutes of Health that it was terminating the partnership on the Sound Health initiative.
  • Effective May 31, 2025, the NEA terminated the Sound Health Network (SHN) cooperative agreement with the University of California San Francisco.
  • For the last five years, SHN has promoted and expanded public knowledge and awareness of music's impacts on health and wellness. We created and maintained an online clearinghouse of scientific publications, virtual networking opportunities, webinars and videos, newsletters, presentations at conferences, and a directory of music and health researchers and practitioners.
  • Moving forward, we encourage musicians and music organizations, music therapists, music educators, scientists, health providers, and funders to continue to share insights and information with each other and to continue learning together. We urge these communities to build on their historic accomplishments through greater collaboration—in keeping with the pattern that the SHN helped to establish.
  • The SHN name and logo are owned exclusively by the NEA. This means that, going forward, the SHN name can only be used by the NEA.
  • However, the SHN name may be used in any text about the web materials, or in text about any historical activity related to the SHN that you may wish to reference.
  • Most of the SHN assets are public and are found on the SHN website. Anyone may take any assets (i.e., "scrape" them) from the SHN website for archiving, reuse, or repurposing—though the NEA cannot provide any authorization as to the use of this content. You will have to do this by Friday, May 30 as the website will be archived after this date. The website eventually will be archived in the UCSF Library.
  • The assets can be used without UCSF’s permission, but they cannot be altered in any way (e.g., cutting out sections and re-purposing in any other way under another brand).
  • If anyone wants to access any non-public information associated with the SHN, please submit a FOIA request to the NEA.