Historically, the roots informing the health humanities can be traced back to, and can now be considered to include, such multidisciplinary areas as the medical humanities[3] and the expressive therapies/creative arts therapies.
[4] The health humanities are rooted in dialogical (negotiated, intersubjective voices of multiple truths), versus monological (a singular, authoritative voice of "the" truth) perspectives on health.
[citation needed] In January 2009, Paul Crawford became the world's first Professor of Health Humanities at the University of Nottingham, and led with Victoria Tischler, Charley Baker, Brian Brown, Lisa Mooney-Smith and Ronald Carter the development of the Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded International Health Humanities Network.
Baccalaureate and Masters programs in health humanities have been developed in the US, Canada and UK.
[7] In 2020, a Master of Science in Research in Health Humanities and Arts started at The University of Edinburgh.