Tagged / social sciences
Coming soon – apply to be part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science 2024!
Are you a social sciences researcher looking for a high-profile opportunity to put on a public engagement event as part of a national festival?
Would you like the chance to receive up to £1,000 funding for your project?
We will shortly be opening the call for applications to take part in this year’s ESRC Festival of Social Science, which runs from 19th October to 9th November, under the theme ‘Our Digital Lives’.
Key dates:
- 17 April, 11:00-12:00: online information session for potential applicants (platform TBC)
- 16 May: deadline for applications
For the second year, BU is partnering with the University of Southampton (UoS) and we are particularly keen to hear from researchers who have already established collaborations with UoS colleagues and may wish to run a joint event.
The festival and our partnership with UoS offers the chance to create an inspiring event which enables you to connect your research in a highly-accessible and engaging way with a broad public audience.
At this stage, we encourage you to familiarise yourself with the ESRC requirements for the festival, and get in touch with any colleagues at UoS who may be interested in running a joint event.
You can also contact the PER Team in RDS to discuss your idea.
For inspiration, have a look at BU’s 2023 festival events and the ESRC’s festival page.
Essential reading: |
Congratulations to Prof. Sara Ashencaen Crabtree
This book employs both ethnographic and secondary, archival data, drawing on a rich, fascinating trove of original material from the pre-1940s to the present day. It offers a unique historiographic study of twentieth century Methodist missionary work and women’s active expression of faith, practised at the critical confluence of historical and global changes. The study focuses on two English Methodist missionary nursing Sisters and siblings, Audrey and Muriel Chalkely, whose words and experiences are captured in detail, foregrounding tumultuous socio-political changes of the end of Empire and post-Independence in twentieth century Kenya and South India.
This work presents a timely revision to prevailing postcolonial critiques in placing the fundamental importance of human relationships centre stage. Offering a detailed (auto)biographical and reflective narrative, this ‘herstory’ pivots on three main thematic strands relating to people, place and passion, where socio-cultural details are vividly explored.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’ Health (CMWH)
Collaborative midwifery paper cited 40 times
The same team wrote a separate paper the following year on ‘Antenatal care trial interventions: a systematic scoping review and taxonomy development of care models’ [2]. Interestingly, ResearchGate tells us this paper has been read fewer times and cited ‘only’ 21 times to date.
Reference:
- Symon, A., Pringle, J, Cheyne, H, Downe, S., Hundley, V, Lee, E, Lynn, F., McFadden, A, McNeill, J., Renfrew, M., Ross-Davie, M., van Teijlingen, E., Whitford, H, Alderdice, F. (2016) Midwifery-led antenatal care models: Mapping a systematic review to evidence-based quality framework to identify key components & characteristics of care, BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth 16:168 http://rdcu.be/uifu
- Symon, A., Pringle, J., Downe, S, Hundley, V., Lee, E., Lynn, F, McFadden, A, McNeill, J, Renfrew, M., Ross-Davie, M., van Teijlingen, E., Whitford, H., Alderdice, F. (2017) Antenatal care trial interventions: a systematic scoping review & taxonomy development of care models BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth 17:8 http://bmcpregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12884-016-1186-3
Café Scientifique Tuesday 5 March 2024 – From ‘student’ to ‘lifesaver’: how understanding identity can help new paramedics
At Café Scientifique, you can explore the latest ideas in science and technology in a relaxed setting. Enjoy listening to a short talk before engaging in debate and discussion with our guest speaker and audience
We’ll be joined by Peter Phillips on Tuesday 5 March from 6:30 – 8:00pm.
Paramedics have the worst wellbeing of all healthcare professionals, and the newly-qualified are particularly vulnerable. But it is not necessarily for the obvious reasons of dealing with traumatic events.
Join Bournemouth University’s Peter Phillips, a senior lecturer in paramedic science, to hear how his research about identity among newly qualified paramedics could help make them more resilient.
This event will be held at The Black Cherry in Boscombe, Bournemouth. Although the talks start at 6:30pm, the café will be open early so we encourage you to arrive early for a drink and a bite to eat before the talk starts.
If you have any questions about this event please email the Public Engagement with Research Team: publicengagement@bournemouth.ac.uk
Get involved with Café Sci in May
Are you a Postgraduate Researcher at Bournemouth University? Do you want to share your research with a public audience and improve your communication skills? If so, we have an exciting opportunity for you.
We are looking for 3-4 postgraduate researchers to take part in a special edition of our Café Scientifique public event series to deliver a short talk about your research to a friendly public audience. The event will take place from 6:30-8:00pm on Tuesday 7 May 2024 at The Black Cherry in Boscombe. Find out more and apply here
New BU Public Health publication
Yesterday we received the proofs of the recently accepted paper ‘Improved Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Facilities at School and their Effect on Educational Achievement in Basic Level Students in Nepal’ [1]. Luckily these are only the proof pages as my family name is misspelt, and the paper still lists the old name of our Centre for Midwifery and Women’s Health, which was, of course, the correct name at the time of submission.
The last time I published a paper on hygiene was also with colleagues in Nepal seven years ago, this time it was on menstrual hygiene [2].
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health
References:
- Sharma, M., Adhikari, R., van Teijlingen, E., Devkota, B., Khanal, S. (2024) Improved Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Facilities at School and their Effect on Educational Achievement in Basic Level Students in Nepal, International Journal of Health Promotion & Education (accepted). https://doi.org/10.1080/14635240.2024.2314459.
- Budhathoki, S.S., Bhattachan, M., Pokharel, P.K., Bhadra, M., van Teijlingen, E. (2017) Reusable sanitary towels: Promoting menstrual hygiene in post-earthquake Nepal. Journal of Family Planning & Reproductive Health Care 43(2): 157-159.
Health Promotion article is being read
Our article ‘Understanding health education, health promotion & public health’ [1] is getting read according to ResearchGate. This conceptual/ theoretical paper was published open access in late 2021 in the Journal of Health Promotion and it reached 4,500 reads yesterday. Whilst the web side of the journal suggests today that the PDF of the paper has been downloaded 8,511 times.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH)
Reference:
- van Teijlingen, K. R., Devkota, B., Douglas, F., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E. R. (2021). Understanding health education, health promotion and public health. Journal of Health Promotion, 9(1): 1–7. https://doi.org/10.3126/jhp.v9i01.40957
New paper by FHSS PhD student Abier Hamidi
This morning the journal Discover Social Science & Health informed us that Abier Hamidi’s latest paper ‘Islamic Perspectives on HIV: A Scoping Review’ has been accepted for publication [1]. Discover Social Science & Health is an Open Access journal publishing research across the full range of disciplines at the intersection of health, social and biomedical sciences. This latest review is part of Abier’s PhD research project and it follows several earlier related publications [2-7].
Abier is supervised by Dr. Pramod Regmi, Principal Academic-International Health and the Global Engagement Lead in the Department of Nursing Sciences, and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen in the Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH).
Congratulations!
References:
- Hamidi, A., Regmi, P., van Teijlingen, E. (2024) Islamic Perspectives on HIV: A Scoping Review, Discover Social Science & Health 4:6 https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s44155-024-00063-7.pdf
- Hamidi, A. (2023) Social media now trumps traditional family networks in Libya – my Facebook survey reached 446,000 women, The Conversation published: April 24.
- Hamidi, A., Regmi, P., van Teijlingen, E. (2023) Facilitators and barriers to condom use in Middle East and North Africa: a systematic review, Journal of Public Health, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-023-01923-3
- Hamidi, A. (2023) Book Review: Fatma Müge Göçek and Gamze Evcimen, The I.B. Tauris Handbook of Sociology and The Middle East, Sociologial Research Online 28(4)
- Hamidi A. (2022) HIV prevention – Challenges in reaching Libyan women: A narrative review. Women’s Health. 18: doi:10.1177/17455057221080832
- Hamidi, A., van Teijlingen, E., Regmi, P. (2021) Facilitators and barriers to condom use in Middle East and North Africa: a systematic review. PROSPERO CRD42021297160
- Hamidi, A., Regmi, P., van Teijlingen, E. (2021) HIV epidemic in Libya: Identifying gaps, Journal of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care, 20 :1-5 https://doi.org/10.1177/23259582211053964 .
Media coverage in Nepal
Last week Mr. Yogesh Dhakal, who is Deputy Editor at Shilapatra, an online newspaper in Nepal, interviewed three UK professors: Julie Balen (Canterbury Christ Church University), Simon Rushton (the University of Sheffield) and Edwin van Teijlingen (Bournemouth University). The focus of the interview (see interview online here) was our recently completed interdisciplinary study ‘The impact of federalisation on Nepal’s health system: a longitudinal analysis’.
In this Nepal Federal Health System Project we studied the consequences for the health system of Nepal’s move from a centralised political system to a more federal structure of government. This three-year project is UK-funded by the MRC, Wellcome Trust and FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office; formerly DFID) under the Health Systems Research Initiative. This joint project is led by the University of Sheffield in collaboration with Bournemouth University, the University of Huddersfield, Canterbury Christ Church University and two institutions in Nepal, namely MMIHS (Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences) and PHASE Nepal.
Today (23rd January) the article appeared online in Nepali. We have seen the transcript in English of the actual interviews with the three of us, but I have no idea how the journalist has edited, selected and translated the relevant text.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMWH (Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health)
A tale of two ministries
Yesterday in Nepal we attempted to meet two government ministers to present policy recommendations generated by the study examining the consequences for the health system of Nepal’s move to a federal government structure. This three-year project is UK-funded by the MRC, Wellcome Trust and the FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office; formerly DFID) under the Health Systems Research Initiative. Through our collaborating partners in Nepal we had managed to make initial contacts with the Prime Minister’s office and a senior secretary in the Ministry of Health & Population. The timing was significant as yesterday was the last day that UK-based members of our team were in Nepal. The day started with a possible meeting with first the Prime Minister Pushpa Dahal, followed by a possible meeting with the Health Minister Mohan Baladur Basnet. However, as the saying goes ‘timing is everything!’ And, in the end the time was against us.
One of the two principle investigators of our study, Professor Simon Rushton from the University of Sheffield, and got ready early in the morning, only to be told by our Nepalese collaborators that the traffic in Kathmandu was hectic. Having waited for nearly an hour for our transport, we decided to split up with one of us joining some of our Nepalese collaborators trying to see the Prime Minister (PM) and the other one with a team to visit the Minister of Health & Population. Prof. Rushton went to the latter and after a period of waiting he and one of our Nepalese collaborators managed to meet the Minister and his staff. He also managed to hand over our policy recommendations. This offered a nice picture opportunity to illustrate a REF Impact Case Study.
Three other Nepalese collaborators and I, on the other hand, waited for over two hours in the waiting room of the Prime Minister, who turned out to be in an urgent meeting with two senior ministers. After over two hours we had to call off our attempt to see the PM. All I ended up with as ‘evidence’ was a picture of the tissue box in the PM’s waiting room. In the end I had to rush to Tribhuven International Airport to catch my flight to Qatar, then onward to London Gatwick.
For the team visiting the PM it felt very much like Robert Burns’ poem: “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men. Gang aft agley.”
Professor Edwin van Teijlingen
CMWH (Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health)
Research methods capacity building in Nepal
Yesterday, Sunday 14th January, I was invited by Bournemouth University’s former PhD student Dr. Pratik Adhikary to run a three-hour methods session on semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions at the Nepal Injury Research Centre (NIRC). The workshop was based on work normally presented as part of BU’s Doctoral College Researcher Development Programme.
The audience comprised PhD students based at NIRC, as well as at Kathmandu Medical College (KMC), and Nepal’s oldest and largest university, Tribhuvan University. Participants were involved in research into many different research questions, ranging from road traffic accidents to sexual health and the well-being of migrant workers. NIRC was established with funding from the UK National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Global Health Research Programme and it is a partnership between KMC and the University of the West of England, Bristol (UWE).
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH)
TV interview in Nepal
There were also questions about the health and well-being of Nepal’s migrant workers, partly related to a recently finished study on kidney health of migrant workers funded by The Colt Foundation and a new project led by La Isla Network in the United States of America (USA). La Isla Network, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health (in the USA) , Nepal Development Society and Bournemouth University are leading the first-ever international effort to research and address trafficking among Nepalese labour migrants. The work is funded by a $4 million cooperative agreement awarded by the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, International Programs.
The television company has already put the hlaf-hour interview on YouTube, to watch it click here!
Labour migration: desperation & exploitation
On my latest trip to Nepal I noticed a number of related newspaper stories about those wanting to migrate abroad for work. Yesterday there was an article with the headline ‘Three held for defrauding unemployed youths’ (The Himalayan Times, January 11, page 2), which could be seen as story about crime, just like the one next to it on the same page with was headed ‘Vehicle stolen’ (The Himalayan Times, January 11, page 2) . Both fit under the category of people suffering from crime committed by naughty people. However, having studied labour migration as a sociologist for over a decade it also speaks of the desperation of young people to leave Nepal. In that sense, the ‘Three held for defrauding unemployed youths’ story, is more like the story the day before ‘Family of Nepali who joined Russian Army worried after hearing about his death’ (The Himalayan Times, January 10, page 1).
In the latter story of a tragic death of a Nepalese mercenary, the most unexpected element I found was that Nepalese victim had paid Rs. 500,000 to criminals, who acted as brokers. I would have expected that Putin’s agents operating in the Middle East were paying large amounts of money to potential army recruits to fight in the invasion of Ukraine. To my great surprise, the payment was the other way round, where Nepalese migrant workers are desperate enough to pay the country at war. When people are desperate to work abroad unscrupulous brokers see opportunities to make money.
Whilst at the end of December 2023 two Nepalese men were killed when Korean language test candidates were staging demonstrations in Kathmandu demanding that they be allowed to appear for language tests for jobs in the manufacturing sector in South Korea. When the Minister for Physical Infrastructure and Transport stopped to intervene, he sparked a riot and his car was set on fire. The police opened fire and killed two protesters in a very un-Nepalese way of dealing with protest. Again to me the underlying issue to note is how desperate these men are to go abroad and get to work in South Korea.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMWH (Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health)
Newspaper coverage in Nepal
One print daily English-language newspaper The Annapurna Express and one online newspaper Gazzabkoo Magazine published articles this week on our project on strengthening the health system in Nepal. The latter used the title ‘Strengthening Health Systems for Better Health‘ and the former opted for the headline ‘Forum on health system strengthening’.
Our interdisciplinary study ‘The impact of federalisation on Nepal’s health system: a longitudinal analysis’ is funded by the UK Health Systems Research Initiative [Grant ref. MR/T023554/1]. In this Nepal Federal Health System Project we study the consequences for the health system of Nepal’s move in 2015 from a centralised political system to a more federal structure of government . This joint project is led by the University of Sheffield in collaboration with Bournemouth University, the University of Huddersfield, Canterbury Christ Church University and two institutions in Nepal, namely MMIHS (Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences) and PHASE Nepal.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMWH (Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health)
Latest paper from Federalisation & Health System in Nepal
The sixth paper from our interdisciplinary research team focuses on the effective way we applied participatory policy analysis in a study on the effects on the health system in Nepal. In the research we used a methodological approach using the River of Life which we describe in this paper ‘Participatory policy analysis in health policy and systems research: reflections from a study in Nepal’ [1]. The Lead author is Dr. Sujata Sapkota from Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (MMIHS) in Kathmandu.
This study was funded by the UK Health Systems Research Initiative [Grant ref. MR/T023554/1]. In this larger Nepal Federal Health System Project we study the consequences for the health system of Nepal’s move from a centralised political system to a more federal government structure in 2015. This joint project is led by the University of Sheffield in collaboration with Bournemouth University, the University of Huddersfield, Canter Bury Christ Church University and two institutions in Nepal, namely MMIHS and PHASE Nepal. We have managed to publish five papers from this project prior to today’s one reflecting on the methodology [2-6].
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMWH (Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health)
References:
- Sapkota, S., Rushton, S., van Teijlingen, E., Subedi, M., Balen, J., Gautam, S., Adhikary, P., Simkhada, P., Wasti, S.P., Karki, J.K., Panday, S., Karki, A., Rijal, B., Joshi, S., Basnet, S., Marahatta, S.B. (2024) Participatory policy analysis in health policy and systems research: reflections from a study in Nepal. Health Research & Policy Systems, 22 (No.7) https://doi.org/10.1186/s12961-023-01092-5 .
- Wasti, S.P., van Teijlingen, E., Rushton, S., et al. (2023) Overcoming the Challenges Facing Nepal’s Health System During Federalisation: An Analysis of Health System Building Blocks, Health Research Policy & Systems 21(117) https://doi.org/10.1186/s12961-023-01033-2
- Sapkota, S., Dhakal, A., Rushton S., et al. (2023) The impact of decentralisation on health systems: a systematic review of reviews. BMJ Global Health 8:e013317. doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2023-013317.
- Sapkota, S., Panday, S., Wasti, S.P., et al. (2022) Health System Strengthening: The Role of Public Health in Federal Nepal, Journal of the Nepal Public Health Association 7(1):36-42.
- Adhikary, P., Balen, J., Gautam, S., et al. (2020) The COVID-19 pandemic in Nepal: Emerging evidence on the effectiveness of action by, and cooperation between, different levels of government in a federal system, Journal of Karnali Academy of Health Sciences 3 (3): 1-11.
- Rushton, S., Pandey, S., van Teijlingen, E., et al. (2021) An Investigation into the Impact of Decentralization on the Health System of Nepal. Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences, 7(1): 3–14. https://doi.org/10.3126/jmmihs.v7i1.43146
Forum on Post-Federalisation Health System Strengthening
Today and tomorrow our research team is engaged in discussions with those responsible for running the health system at different levels of the new federal system in Nepal. The aim today and tomorrow of this participatory research project is bring together stakeholders from all levels of government (local, provincial and federal), to develop solutions, practical actions and recommendations for different levels of the political system to address some of the five areas our research identified as possible priorities. Nepal changed from a centralised political system of government to a federal system in 2015. It is easy to see how such change in the political system might affect the organisation, funding, governance, human resources, etc. of all sub-systems in society, such as the education system, the police, and in the area of our particular interest, the health system.
This interdisciplinary study started just before COVID-19 in 2020 and is now coming to a conclusion. The multi-national research team includes researchers from Nepal: MMIHS (Manmohan Memorial Institute of Sciences) in Kathmandu, and PHASE Nepal (Bhaktapur), the University of Sheffield, Bournemouth University, and the University of Huddersfield (the original UK applicants), and researchers currently based at three further UK universities: the University of Greenwich, the University of Essex and Canterbury Christ Church University. This exciting research is funded by the Health System Research Initiative, a UK collaboration between three funders: the MRC (Medical research Council), the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), and the Welcome Trust.
Media: press presentation in Nepal
Today we sent out a press release in both English and Nepali prior to a face-to-face media event in Hotel Yak and Yeti, Kathmandu. This media coverage highlights our interdisciplinary study ‘The impact of federalisation on Nepal’s health system: a longitudinal analysis’. We are hosting a National Forum on post-Federalisation Health System Strengthening tomorrow and the day after with stakeholders involved of all three (local, provincial and central) levels of government in Nepal.
This study started just before COVID-19 in 2020 and this is the final year. The research team includes researchers from Nepal, namely MMIHS (Manmohan Memorial Institute of Sciences) in Kathmandu, and PHASE Nepal (Bhaktapur), the University of Sheffield, Bournemouth University, and the University of Huddersfield (the three original UK co-applicants), and researchers now based at the University of Greenwich, the University of Essex and Canterbury Christ Church University. This exciting research is funded by the Health System Research Initiative, a UK collaboration between three funders: the MRC (Medical research Council), the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), and the Welcome Trust.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMWH (Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health)
New migration paper related to Nepal
On the last day of 2023 the Journal of Health Promotion published the paper ‘Sexual Harassment Among Nepali Non-Migrating Female Partners of International Labor Migrant Men’ [1]. This paper, in an Open Access journal, addresses one of the consequences of male labour migrants leaving their family members behind in Nepal. While non-migrating spouses often receive financial support in the form of remittances, their husbands’ migration also creates numerous social and personal problems. This qualitative study explored non-migrating spouses’ experience of sexual harassment/abuse and its impact on their mental health. Fourteen in-depth interviews were conducted and women reported experiencing harassment by men they knew, including their teachers and colleagues, who knew their husbands were abroad. But none of the women reported taking any action against their perpetrators, indicating a lack of power in this study population in still predominantly patriarchal society.
The lead author of the paper is Assistant Prof. Kalpana Gyawali from Tribhuvan University, Nepal’s largest and oldest university paper. Her co-authors are: Padam Simkhada, Visiting Professor in BU’s Faculty of Health & Social Sciences as well as Professor in Global Health at the University of Huddersfield, Edwin van Teijlingen in Bournemouth University’s Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health, Ms. Shraddha Manandhar, PhD. student at the University of Huddersfield, and Mr. Ram Chandra Silwal the Country Director of Green Tara Nepal, the charity we have been working with for nearly twenty years.
References:
- Gyawali, K., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E.R., Manandhar, S., Silwal, R.C. (2023). Sexual Harassment Among Nepali Non-Migrating Female Partners of International Labor Migrant Men. Journal of Health Promotion, 11(1): 22–31. https://www.nepjol.info/index.php/jhp/article/view/61198