The National Endowment for the Arts’ (NEA) Office of Research & Analysis created the National Arts Statistics and Evidence-based Reporting Center (NASERC) in 2022 with the goal of providing the public with frequently updated statistics on the health and vitality of the arts in the United States. As part of this ongoing work, NASERC has created the Arts Indicators Project to track key measures across four domains: artists and other cultural workers, arts participation, arts and cultural assets, and arts and education. Indicators within these domains summarize important developments and trends in the arts by using the latest national statistics, which are updated as new data become available.

Additionally, NASERC produces topical reports, practitioner guides, field scans, and literature reviews to support the work of policy makers, practitioners, researchers, and inform the general public.

For more information on the Arts Indicators Project, view our infographic or learn about these assets in more detail below.
 

Explore the latest statistics on the arts across four domains within the NASERC Arts Indicators Framework.

Technical Report

Learn more about the development of the NASERC Arts Indicators Framework through our Technical Report. The process involved a literature review, one-on-one interviews, and dataset mapping—all in consultation with a diverse group of field experts.

Indicator Topics for Future Exploration: The NASERC team aimed to select indicator topics that highlight a wide variety of statistics on the health and vitality of the arts in the United States. Limitations arose for some of these topics, however, based on the availability, quality, and relevance of publicly data sources. Accordingly, topics not yet reflected in the Arts Indicators system include: barriers and motivations affecting arts participation; micro-geographic locations of arts-related industries; public and private funding for the arts; capital expenditures within arts and cultural industries and organizations; and arts education and arts activities of schoolchildren. 

The Arts Indicators Framework will incorporate new data sources and indicator topics as data become available. The NASERC team will continue to monitor the availability of new data sources that may prove useful for developing indicators on any of these topics or on any yet-to-be-identified topics of interest.

Questions? Please contact NASERChelpdesk@air.org to receive expert support.