HealthMatters Program Gets People Moving at ArtWorks
By Drew Milne
Whether it’s yoga classes, running clubs, or rock climbing groups, group activities are a great way to get active, stay healthy, and even make new friends. This summer, a program at ArtWorks called HealthMatters provided a safe, accessible space for people with developmental disabilities to learn about staying healthy and to apply what they learn in a supportive environment. ArtWorks’ HealthMatters program ran from March 19 to July 25, 2025.
“This is a health education and exercise combined intervention,” said Dr. Yumi Shirai, director of ArtWorks. “With this curriculum, they improve their physical health and their knowledge of health.”
Developed at the University of Illinois at Chicago, HealthMatters is an evidence-based program designed especially for people with I/DD and combines health education with fun and engaging exercise activities. Meeting two to three times a week, the program includes 36 “modules”, or lessons. Lesson subjects range include nutrition and sleep, exercise safety, cardiovascular health, and building healthy habits, to name a few.
“This curriculum really captures small segments of health, like types of exercise, how to do it, and what kind of healthy food we can eat. But then within small segments we really explore ideas of how we can integrate those into our day-to-day.” Dr. Shirai said of the program’s approach.
Each module also includes an activity. After the lesson, participants do a short exercise or set of exercises. The exercise activities fit into four categories: Stretching, Balance, Cardio, and Strength.
“One of our goals was figuring out how we can really make this curriculum feasible for what we do at artworks so that it’s easy to plan and easy to implement.” Dr. Shirai said. “Any exercise that informs any of those 4 components can be counted. For example, when we do pop up art shows, we can do music out loud and dance together, that can be counted as cardio. We can really integrate this curriculum into existing programming.”
The social aspect of HealthMatters has several benefits: participants can support each other, which makes the experience more enjoyable for everyone.
“If you share exercise with others, then that encourages us to do exercise more. Then we want to exercise better, too. So the content and actual exercise part complement each other,” said Dr. Shirai.
Another of the program’s strengths is its commitment to meeting people where they are.
“We all know what to do to be healthy, we should exercise, we should eat well - but do you practice that? We share the strategies for how we can do it and figure out the feasible little steps that each of us can take. It doesn't really say, ‘you need to do this and that’, it can be very flexibly adapted to your own needs or your own interests,” Dr. Shirai explained.
The HealthMatters program at ArtWorks concluded in July, but Dr. Shirai hopes that ArtWorks can help other community partners continue the HealthMatters program in the future.
“Day programs can be partners. We can either broadcast this on zoom with multiple day programs or group homes. Somebody who already went through the curriculum can co-facilitate the class, perhaps online,” Dr. Shirai said. “If anyone is interested in collaborating with us, just contact us.”
For organizations interested in running their own HealthMatters program, applications are open until August 22, 2025.