Category / Nursing & Midwifery

BU’s Dr. Iannuzzi editing special issue HEALTHCARE

international, Publishing, Women's Academic Network, writing

Dr. Laura Iannuzzi, based in the Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health, is acting as one of the two guest editors of a Special Issue for the international journal Healthcare.  This Special Issue called ‘Advancing Midwifery and Nursing Practice: Equity, Inclusion and Integrated Care’ currently has a call out for contributions. Details can be found by clicking here!

Healthcare is looking for authors to submit papers exploring strategic directions for midwifery and nursing in advancing inclusion, equity, and health.  This Special Issue is open to topics such as integrated care strategies and long-term care models, professional nursing roles, evidence-based interventions, and community-engaged approaches. The proposed theme aligns with Healthcare’s focus on multidisciplinary research and practical solutions that improve health outcomes across populations.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Strategic frameworks and global policy implications for midwifery and nursing;
  • Educational innovations to promote equity and development;
  • Evidence-based clinical practices focused on underserved populations;
  • Community health initiatives and participatory care models;
  • Coordinated interprofessional models and organizational frameworks that promote inclusive and equitable care;
  • Impacts of global crises (e.g., pandemics, conflict) on midwifery and nursing practices.

The Guest Editors are Dr. Simona Fumagalli and Dr. Laura Iannuzzi

World War II: Eating tulip bulbs

international, writing

Tulip bulbs can be eaten, but it is not a common source of human food. Eating tulip bulbs helped many Dutch people in the Hunger Winter, the last winter of the Second World War (1944-1945). During the German occupation the Dutch suffered from a shortage of food.  In the collection of my mother, I found a short book published in 1941 with a made-do-and-mend approach about growing your own food.  My mother died this summer at the age of 92.

The book ‘Veel groenten van weinig grond’ (in Dutch: Many vegetables from little soil) gives advice to readers on how to grown vegetables in small plots of land, gardens, etc.  This book in the first year of the occupation does not mention the use of tulips as food. Hidden in the book was a typed one-page sheet with three instruction for tulips followed by five recipes.

The main message seems to be that the preparation of the tulip bulbs as well as the taste is very much like potatoes.  For example, the recipe for tulip bulb puree includes boiling the bulbs, one packet of vanilla sugar or vanilla essence, three spoons of honey, artificial honey or syrup, mix well and add warm water.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Faculty of Health, Environment & Medical Sciences

Health promotion paper read 8,000 times

international, open access, Publishing, writing

This morning ResearchGate informed us that our paper ‘Understanding health education, health promotion and public health‘ [1] which was published in 2021 has been read 8,000 times.  This thinking piece delves into the differences between the concepts of: (a) health education; (b) health promotion; and (c) public health. This confusion does not limit itself to the individual terms, but also to how these terms relate to each other. Some use terms such as health education and health promotion interchangeably; others see them clearly as different concepts. The paper starts by outlining the authors’ understanding of these individual terms.

They suggest how the five principles of health promotion as outlined by the World Health Organization (WHO, 1984) fit into Tannahill’s (2009) model of three overlapping areas: (a) health education; (b) prevention of ill health; and (c) health protection. Such schematic overview places health education within health promotion and health promotion itself in the centre of the overarching disciplines of education and public health.  The authors hope their article helps reduce confusion among all those interested in our discipline, including students, educators, journalists, practitioners, policymakers, politicians, and researchers.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMWH

 

Reference:

  1. 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(01), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.3126/jhp.v9i01.40957

 

Top baby names in England and Wales in 2024

Earlier this week the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published its annual list of the most popular baby names for boys and girls.  The top three names for girls were: Olivia, Amelia and Lily and for boys these were Muhammad, Noah and Oliver.  Interestingly two different spellings of Muhammad, namely Mohammed and Muhammed also made it to the top hundred most common names.  There is a clear sociology in the naming of babies.  First, there is an element of culture and religion, but there is also a clear element of fashion.

To make a simple comparison I looked at the top three most common names for girls and boys in neighbouring the Netherlands.  According to Dutch official statistics the top girls’ names were in 2024: Emma, Olivia and Lily, and the top three boys names were: Noah, Luca and Lucas. Interestingly, the top name in England and Wales Muhammad is not even in the top 40 most popular boys’ names in the Netherlands, and neither are Mohammed and Muhammed.  However, whereas England and Wales listed three different spellings of Muhammad, the Netherlands had six different ones (these were names used at least ten times that year): Muhammad, Mohammed, Mohamed, Mohamad, Muhammed, and Muhammad.  All variants together made it the fourth most popular boys name in the Netherlands.

Charles Dickens | Mystery of Edwin Drood | 9780140439267 | Daunt Books

To highlight the fashion element of naming babies, the name Edwin was not listed on either country’s list.  The ONS website also offers historic lists of top 100 names for baby boys and girls for 1904 to 2024 at ten-yearly intervals.  The very last year Edwin was in the top 100 boys’ names was in 1944 when it reached number 89 in the top 100!

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Professor of Reproductive Health, Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health

Conducting training in Kathmandu by BU academic

international, PG research

This week Dr. Pramod Regmi, who is Principal Academic in International Health in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences, taught a CPD refresher workshop on systematic reviewing in Kathmandu.  This workshop is part of our long-standing Memorandum of Agreement between Bournemouth University (BU) and Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (MMIHS) in Nepal.  The teaching aimed to refresh knowledge and provide practical training on various aspects of the systematic review process, including literature searching, study selection, data extraction, critical appraisal, and synthesis. The programme, which included both staff and Master students, was jointly organized by MMIHS and BU.

May be an image of 8 people and text that says "HEALTHSCIENCES SCIENCES अफहेलसाराइन्सेज હહર इन्सज"

The staff at MMIHS also welcome BU’s Ph.D. student Ms. Anjana Paudyal.  Anjana is currently in Nepal as part of the UK’s Turing Scheme Traineeship Programme.  Over the past few years MMIHS have kindly hosted several BU students who came to Nepal under the Turing Scheme.  Anjana’s Ph.D. focuses on human trafficking, which is form of modern slavery.  Despite being a global problem, modern slavery is understudied and poorly understood. Victims of modern slavery are exploited and can experience significant physical, psychological, or sexual, and reproductive health problems. Until recently, there has been little research in this field, especially in low-income countries such as Nepal.  Anjana”s Ph.D. fits in with BU’s collaboration with the US-based La Isla Network, the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Nepal Development Society (for details click here!).   Led by La Isla Network, we 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.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health

Digital Health and AI: Paving the Way for Health Equity in Maternal and Infant Care

The long awaited 10-year health plan for England emphasises the use of digital technologies and the aspiration to “make the NHS the most AI-enabled health system in the world”. This requires expertise in artificial intelligence and data science, but interdisciplinary collaboration is also essential if we are to make this a reality.

The Maternal and Infant Health Equity Research Centre (MIHERC) aims to do this by bringing together experts in maternal health, behavioural science, AI and digital health to help drive innovative solutions through co-production and real partnership, ensuring better outcomes for all women and babies. MIHERC is led by Professor Hora Soltani at Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) in collaboration with key partners including Bournemouth University (BU), the City of Doncaster Council and South Yorkshire Digital Health Hub.

Alongside Professor Vanora Hundley, who has been appointed as a Capacity Training and Development Lead, Professor Huseyin Dogan and Prof Alessandro Di Nuovo from MIHERC will be co-leading the cross-cutting workstream titled “digital, data, monitoring, evaluation and implementation science” as part of the NIHR Maternity Disparities consortium. This workstreams aims

– to identify and test trusted, reliable AI technologies for deployment by the NHS to help reduce disparities;

– to develop and refine equity monitoring, real-world evaluation and implementation science methods for use in maternity disparities research, with a focus on enhancing their robustness and practical application;

– to embed advanced analytic and digital tools and implementation frameworks into maternity disparities research to improve the rigor and impact of studies on equity; and

– to build a community of practice within and external to consortium to develop analytical, methodological, and implementation science capacity.

The BU key academics are: Huseyin Dogan, Vanora Hundley, Edwin van Teijlingen, and Deniz Çetinkaya. Please do get in touch with the MIHERC team for further information.

Academics write for newspaper in Nepal

innovation, international, open access, Publishing, writing

Yesterday the online newspaper Online Khabar in Nepal published an opinion piece in English written by three Bournemouth University academics working with a colleague in Kathmandu.  This interdisciplinary piece ‘Resilient through experiences: Unlocking the entrepreneurial prowess of Nepal’s left-behind women‘ brings together ideas gained from many different studies and disciplines.  The three authors from Bournemouth University are: Dr. Sukanya Ayatakshi-Endow, Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, and Dr. Pramod Regmi, and they collaborated with Dr. Rashmee Rajkarnikar who is based at Nepal’s oldest and largest university, Tribhuvan University.  The four authors brings insights from economics, business studies, sociology, women’s studies, migration studies and health.

New paper published on disability in women & girls

international, open access, Publishing, Women's Academic Network, writing

Yesterday (25 June) the online journal PLoS One published ‘Life-time experience of violence among women and girls living with disability in Nepal‘ our latest study on disability in Nepal [1].  This cross-sectional study was conducted in 28 municipalities representing all seven provinces as well as all three ecological regions of Nepal. A total of 1,294 women and girls with disability aged 15–59 years participated in  2021. We trained local enumerators using the KoBo application on smartphones or tablets. Both written and oral informed consent was sought from all participants. Cross-tabulations were performed in STATA 18 to determine the distribution of the prevalence of violence. Also, bivariable and multivariable logistic regression models were fitted to establish association between the participants’ characteristics and odds of experiencing violence.

Overall, 457 (35.32%) women living with disabilities had ever experienced violence at a point in their lifetime. Psychological/emotional violence was the most prevalent violence (74.40%) followed by physical violence (31.07%) and denial of services (28.67%). Age was positively associated with the likelihood of experiencing violence. Women belonging to the Brahman/Chhetri ethnic group had reduced odds of violence [AOR = 0.56; 95%CI: 0.37–0.85] compared to Hill Dalits. Divorced or separated women showed a markedly higher likelihood of experiencing violence [AOR = 6.69; 95%CI: 2.31–19.40] compared to currently married women. Participants who had not witnessed violence against other women exhibited significantly higher odds of experiencing violence [AOR = 1.86; 95%CI: 1.20–2.89]. Women living in the Koshi province [AOR = 4.04; 95%CI: 2.54–6.42], Madhesh province [AOR = 2.16; 95%CI: 1.15–4.08] and Bagmati province [AOR = 2.21; 95%CI: 1.41–3.46] reported significantly higher odds of experiencing violence compared to those in Karnali.

The paper concludes oncludes that age, ethnicity, marital status, and provincial residence are significant predictors of violence among women and girls living with disability in Nepal. Interventions aimed at addressing violence against women living with disability in Nepal must prioritize older women and those who were previously married. Also, policy-makers may want to consider giving priority must be given to those provinces where the prevalence and risk of experiencing violence is highest.

The study was funded The United Nations Women Trust Fund,  and the paper is freely available in the Open Access journal.  We previously published on research into disability in Nepal in 2023 [2].

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health

Visiting Faculty, Centre for Disability Studies, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala, India.


References:

  1. Simkhada P, Basnet S, Sharma S, van Teijlingen E, Wasti SP, Dahal T, et al. (2025) Life-time experience of violence among women and girls living with disability in Nepal. PLoS One 20(6): e0326659. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0326659.
  2. Simkhada, P, Shyangdan, D, van Teijlingen E, Kadel, S, Stephen, J., Gurung, T. (2013) Women’s Knowledge & Attitude towards Disability in Rural Nepal. Disability & Rehabilitation 35(7): 606-13. http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/09638288.2012.702847

Global Consortium for Public Health Research 2025

international, Publishing, Research themes, writing

This week the 3rd Annual Meeting of the Global Consortium for Public Health (GCPHR) takes place at the University of Huddersfield on June 25th-26th.  GCPHR 2025 was attended by people involved in global health research from the UK, India, Nepal, Qatar, and Ghana.  Building on the success of the 2023 inaugural two-day meeting and the second annual event in 2024, the 2025 meeting brought together a diverse community of health researchers, practitioners, policy-makers and global health leaders. This initiative has as its main aim to facilitate the exchange of knowledge, promote innovation, and strengthen international collaboration.

Bournemouth University academics have been involved since GCPHR’s inception, and this year Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen from the Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH) contributed to a panel discussion on ‘Innovating Tomorrow: National and Global Research in the Age of AI’.  He presented around the pros and cons of Interdisciplinary Research in Global Health. Together with colleagues Edwin has published several papers on interdisciplinary research [1-3] and collaborative writing of research output with a range of colleagues from different disciplines [4-5].

Prof. Padam Simkhada from the University of Huddersfield (and Visiting Faculty in BU’s Faculty of Health & Social Sciences outlined the recently awarded British Academy grant on ‘Evidence-based Policy-Making in Nepal’.  The latter project, which includes BU’s Dr. Pramod Regmi as co-investigator, also has policy-makers in Nepal as collaborators, giving it great potential to become a REF Impact Case-Study.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References:

  1. Shanker, S., Wasti, S.P., Ireland, J., Regmi, P., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E. (2021) The Interdisciplinary Team Not the Interdisciplinarist: Reflections on Interdisciplinary Research, Europasian Journal of Medical Sciences 3(2): 1-5. https://doi.org/10.46405/ejms.v3i2.317
  2. van Teijlingen, E., Regmi, P., Adhikary, P., Aryal, N., Simkhada, P. (2019). Interdisciplinary Research in Public Health: Not quite straightforward. Health Prospect, 18(1), 4-7. https://doi.org/10.3126/hprospect.v18i1.19337
  3. Wasti, S. P., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P. (2020) Public Health is truly interdisciplinary. Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences, 6(1):21-22.
  4. Harvey, O., van Teijlingen, A., Regmi, P.R., Ireland, J., Rijal, A., van Teijlingen, E.R. (2022) Co-authors, colleagues, and contributors: Complexities in collaboration and sharing lessons on academic writing, Health Prospect 21(1):1-3. https://www.nepjol.info/index.php/HPROSPECT/article/view/39320/31432
  5. Hundley, V., Luce, A., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E. (2022) Collaborative Writing for Publication, In: Wasti, S.P., et al. (Eds.) Academic Writing and Publishing in Health & Social Sciences, Kathmandu, Nepal: Himal Books: 15-19.

Paper accepted on women and disability in Nepal

international, open access, Women's Academic Network, writing

The academic editor of PLOS ONE informed us yesterday that our latest paper ‘Life-time experience of violence among women and girls living with disability in Nepal: A cross-sectional study’ [1] has been accepted for publication.  The paper is based on research conducted as part of the Inclusive Partnership Against Violence (INPAV) project in Nepal.  Working with our long-term research paper Green Tara Nepal (GTN) and funded by The United Nations Trust Fund (UNTF) through Nepal Disabled Women Association (NDWA), we have been involved in InPAV. This project included a situation analysis of the existing government setup One-stop Crisis Management Center (OCMC) to understand the inclusiveness of the OCMC services for girls and women with disabilities.  The paper just accepted was part of this research.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health

 

  1. Simkhada, P., Basnet, S., Sharma, S., van Teijlingen, E., Wasti, S.P., Dahal, T., Okyere, J., Silwal, R.C., Pyakurel, M. (2025) Life-time experience of violence among women and girls living with disability in Nepal: A cross-sectional study . PLoS ONE (accepted).

Successful academic writing, publishing and collaboration workshop at BU

PG research, Publishing, Women's Academic Network, writing

Last week’s workshop on ‘Academic Writing, Publishing & Collaborating’ held at Talbot Campus organised by Mrs. Anjana Paudyal, Ph.D. student in FHSS (Faculty of Health & Social Sciences) was very engaging and very well attended.  This event was part of the Doctoral College’s Research Culture and Community workshop series.  The workshop was opened by Anjana, who spoke about publishing her first PhD paper in the first half year of her part-time PhD journey.

Key sessions in this interactive workshop included presentations from Ms. Jillian Ireland based at UHD (University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust) and academics based at BU.  Jillian spoke about her experience of publishing in practice journals as well as publishing papers about practice in academic journals.

Whilst Dr. Pramod Regmi, Principal Academic in International Health in FHSS stressed the importance of paying attention to publishing metrics and identifiers, including h-factors, impact factors, and social media use in academic publishing.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, Research Culture Champion in FHSS outlined ideas for turning PhD chapters in papers and he also highlighted BU’s unique option of doing a so-called ‘Integrated thesis‘.  The integrated thesis format allows students to incorporate papers into their thesis.  These can be published papers, papers accepted for publication, papers submitted, prepared but not submitted papers and other unpublished papers or reports.

Dr. Orlanda Harvey is a senior lecturer in Social Work at BU, specialising in Developing Professional Relationships and Leadership, she presented replying to reviewers.   The Question & Answer session was lively and engaging.

Last, but not least, Anjana Paudyal, the organiser, and presenters would like to thank the Doctoral College for supporting this important event!

Leadership in disaster nursing

PG research, student research

On Wednesday (04/06) the Centre for Wellbeing and Long-Term Health (CWLTH) and the Department of Nursing Science welcomed Kelsie Fletcher back to Bournemouth University to talk about her doctoral research – ‘Becoming leaders of change: adaptive moral navigation and the challenges of international disaster nursing‘. Kelsie, currently a Lecturer in Nursing at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, is supervised by Professor Steve Ersser and Dr Linda Agyemang.

Kelsie presented some of her initial findings from her qualitative research in which she has interviewed nurses currently involved in teams engaged in disaster management around the world. In the coming week, Kelsie will be presenting her research again, this time to a much larger audience at the International Council of Nurses (ICN) Congress in Helsinki. If you would like to know more about Kelsie’s research, please email fletcherk@bournemouth.ac.uk.

We all wish Kelsie well as she moves towards submission of her thesis for examination later this year.

The CWLTH’s next and final research seminar for this academic year will be on Tuesday 17/06 when Jess Correia will be speaking about her research on ‘Understanding the decision-making process for women with common mental disorders around prescribed psychiatric medication use during pregnancy‘. All are welcome to attend and for more information please contact CWLTH@Bournemouth.ac.uk.

New systematic review published by PhD student

PG research, Publishing

PhD student Barbara Pope, supervised by Dr Leslie Gelling, Dr Chantel Cox and Dr Sharon Holland, has published a new systematic review in the Journal of Clinical Nursing. This review seeks to explore current evidence on the experiences of spouses when their partner with dementia moves into a care home. Analysis of the eight research studies included in this review identified three broad themes: (a) loss of a shared life, (b) visiting their partner in a care home and (c) grief, depression and ‘unable to move on’. The full paper can be viewed HERE. For more information about the review, please contact Barbara (bpope@bournemouth.ac.uk).