AMNA NAWAZ: Now for a look at a program using the arts to tackle loneliness and social isolation.

Located in Charlotte, North Carolina, it requires a prescription for art instead of medicine.

Paul Solman has the story for our series at the intersection of art and health, part of our Canvas coverage.

ALISHA BIGBY, Charlotte Art on Prescription Participant: I wouldn't go anywhere.

I stayed at home.

PAUL SOLMAN: Alisha Bigby was traumatized by family tragedy.

ALISHA BIGBY: I would get invited to things, and I would say I would go, and then I would kind of get a panic attack and wouldn't go.

And I would just sit in the dark at home or sit on the front porch.

PAUL SOLMAN: But now she's giving interviews to strangers, visiting museums.

ALISHA BIGBY: Growing up, my mom collected these little African American figurines.

PAUL SOLMAN: One of her favorite paintings at the moment, David McGee's Drum Call.

ALISHA BIGBY: When I came here and I saw this, I was like, oh, my goodness, this reminds me so much of my mom and the little figurines that she kept in her armoire.

And I just immediately gravitated towards this.

PAUL SOLMAN: In fact, this museum was key to her turnaround, The Bechtler in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina, and its program Art on Prescription.

TODD SMITH, Executive Director, The Bechtler Museum of Modern Art: So individuals who are under the care of a doctor are prescribed art as medicine, and instead of going to the pharmacy to have their prescription filled, they come to the museum, where they get a year's worth of arts programming for free.

PAUL SOLMAN: Todd Smith runs this contemporary museum.

TODD SMITH: It's a way to combat loneliness here in Charlotte.

They attend performances, they create art, they talk about art, they share experiences, and in the end they become friends.

PAUL SOLMAN: Eighty participants have gone to the ballet, the theater, taken art making classes, and visited The Bechtler to see most recently David McGee's riffs on art classics from the past, like The End of Summer, playing off Caravaggio's famous Bacchus.

TODD SMITH: We would ask participants to just start talking about what they see.

What do the colors make you feel?

How does it express an emotion to you?

It's just about getting people to talk.

PAUL SOLMAN: Bigby didn't talk at all after an unimaginably painful series of events that began with the death of her brother.

ALISHA BIGBY: His truck went down and the embankment and it exploded.

And then just a few days later, my mom passed away.

PAUL SOLMAN: Within two days?

ALISHA BIGBY: Within just a few days, yes.

And my other brother, he just went to bed and didn't wake up.

He too passed away.

And 12 hours after my brother Larry passed away, my dad passed away as well.

And because we had... PAUL SOLMAN: Oh, my God.

So you lost four family members within a three weeks or something?

ALISHA BIGBY: Four family members within about three weeks.

PAUL SOLMAN: Bigby simply shut down, rarely left the house.

Her therapist suggested Art on Prescription.

It's the first-of-its kind program in the U.S., but community activity as medicine is hardly new.

It's even got a name, social prescribing.

JULIA HOTZ, Author, "The Connection Cure: The Prescriptive Power of Movement, Nature, Art, Service, and Belonging": Social prescribing got its start in the U.K.

Doctors had been recognizing how loneliness was a major social determinant of health.

You had people coming to the emergency room.

You had people coming to use their doctor's services more often because they were lonely.

And they're now used to treat a wide variety of afflictions, anxiety, depression, ADHD, addiction, even dementia.

PAUL SOLMAN: Julia Hotz wrote "The Connection Cure."

JULIA HOTZ: Most social prescriptions tend to revolve around five kinds of activities involving movement, nature, art, service, and belonging.

And when researchers started measuring the impact of social prescriptions, they found that it not only improved patients' health, it not only improved their mood, reduced their anxiety, reduced their depression, reduced their loneliness, but it also was reducing pressure on health care.

In some places, you were 50 percent less likely to have to go to the emergency room if you had a social prescribing scheme in place.

And that amounted in a place like England, where health care is nationalized, to major cost savings for the whole system.

PAUL SOLMAN: The concept caught on here to combat a common curse in America these days, the loneliness epidemic.

TODD SMITH: If you look at the last 10 years of all that we have done to move ourselves away from community interactions, how reliant we are on screens and coming out of COVID and hybrid work situations, you know, the world has changed dramatically in the last 10 years, and many of us don't know how to deal with it and don't know how to come back together.

PAUL SOLMAN: The problem seemed especially acute in Charlotte.

TODD SMITH: There's a lot of mobility of people moving into Charlotte.

Charlotte's one of the fastest growing cities in the country.

How do we connect, whether you're a teenager or whether you're a senior citizen?

PAUL SOLMAN: Julie Wohrer came to Charlotte for work.

JULIE WOHRER, Charlotte Art on Prescription Participant: I had moved down here at the start of the pandemic, and everything kind of shut down, which then made it hard to meet people.

I moved into the country, so made it very convenient for me to go to work, come home, stay with the dogs, and not venture out.

PAUL SOLMAN: Then she lost her job.

JULIE WOHRER: I had focused so much energy into work.

I had been with the company over 20 years, and so when that was no longer a part of my life, it's, who am I now?

So I just kind of secluded to me and my dogs.

PAUL SOLMAN: But through Art on Prescription, warrior made connections.

JULIE WOHRER: I have met some people in the program, and we talk outside of the program.

I have M.S.

as well, and it's made me start facing that condition and getting into those groups as well.

It feels much less isolated definitely from a year ago, but even three, four months ago.

PAUL SOLMAN: And would you not have connected with an M.S.

group had it not been for this?

JULIE WOHRER: I don't think so.

I don't think so.

It was the first step.

It's kind of like a snowball coming down a hill.

It allowed me to get momentum.

PAUL SOLMAN: Todd Smith says most participants report feeling less lonely.

TODD SMITH: The results for the individuals who have been in the program have been pretty remarkable.

About 80 percent of the participants are seeing meaningful change in how they view themselves on that loneliness scale.

PAUL SOLMAN: Alisha Bigby, for one, rediscovered her voice and now goes to every Art on Prescription event.

ALISHA BIGBY: Clay work definitely one of my favorites.

You have the clay and you get to be messy, dirty, and you learn how to make bowls and cups and those kind of things.

PAUL SOLMAN: She says she's now motivated by her late mother.

ALISHA BIGBY: Any time I am hesitant about something, her voice is in my ear, where it's like, baby girl, she wants you to live.

She doesn't want you to sit still.

She wants you to get up and take yourself out into this world and enjoy life.

PAUL SOLMAN: The program's arts meet-ups have helped restore Julie Wohrer too.

JULIE WOHRER: Those small shifts make a huge difference in my mental health, how I feel about myself, that I can -- that old dogs can learn new tricks, right?

And... PAUL SOLMAN: And do you feel that you are now contributing more than you were before?

JULIE WOHRER: I do, and I want to contribute more.

I still have a mark to make.

PAUL SOLMAN: Art on Prescription already has a wait-list, and it's certainly one way to get folks out of isolation into museums, make friends.

For the "PBS News Hour," Paul Solman in Charlotte, North Carolina.