Category / Social Work and Social Policy

COVID-19 funding and research

Funding opportunities, innovation, NHS

To support the response to COVID-19 the Research Design Service South West (RDS SW) has put together a useful resource page to help researchers. This includes relevant funding calls as well as more general information about the pandemic.

Don’t forget, your local branch of the NIHR RDS is based within the BU Clinical Research Unit (BUCRU)

The BUCRU/RDS office is currently closed due to Coronavirus.  Staff are still working and able to offer research advice remotely, call us on 01202 961939 or send us an email.

Nepal publication: Smoking & suicide ideation

international, open access, Publishing, writing

Published earlier this week in the Nepal Journal of Epidemiology a BU co-authored paper on ‘Cigarette smoking dose-response and suicidal ideation among young people in Nepal: a cross-sectional study’ [1].   The authors conducted a cross-sectional questionnaire-based survey with 452 young people in Nepal’s second largest city Pokhara.  The study matched participants by age and smoking status. The mean age was 21.6 years and 58.8% were males. The overall rate of suicidal ideation in our cohort was 8.9%. Smokers were slightly more likely to report suicidal ideation than non-smokers (aOR 1.12). The risk of developing suicidal ideation was 3.56 (95% CI 1.26-10.09) times more in individuals who smoked greater than 3.5 cigarettes per week (p=0.01).
The paper concludes that the rate of suicidal ideation was slightly higher among smokers and a dose-response relationship  existed linked with the number of cigarettes smoked per week. Being aware of the link between smoking and
suicidal ideation may help health care professionals working with young people to address more effectively the issues of mental well-being and thoughts about suicide.  The Nepal Journal of Epidemiology is an Open Access journal hence this public health  paper is freely available to readers across the globe.

Reference:

  1. Sathian, B., Menezes, R.G., Asim, M., Mekkodathil, A., Sreedharan, J., Banerjee, I., van Teijlingen, E.R., Roy, B., Subramanya, S.H., .Kharoshah, M.A., Rajesh, E., Shetty, U., Arun, M., Ram, P., Srivastava, V.K. (2020) Cigarette smoking dose-response and suicidal ideation among young people in Nepal: a cross-sectional study, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 10 (1): 821-829 https://www.nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/article/view/28277

COVID-19 Pandemic: Public Health Implications in Nepal

international, open access, Publishing, writing

Our editorial today in the Nepal Journal of Epidemiology highlights some of the key issues related to COVID-19 related to a low-income country such as Nepal [1].  There are various Public Health challenges to preventing the spread of COVID-19 in South Asia including Nepal. Learning from the  COVID-19 outbreak in China, there will be slowdown of economic activity with damaged supply chains which impact upon the public health systems in Nepal. Moreover, there is limited coordination among different stakeholders in healthcare management with few policies in place for infection prevention and control, shortage of testing kits and medical supplies (shortages of masks, gloves), and poor reporting are major challenges to be tackled in case of the COVID-19.

All South Asian countries are vulnerable to a mass outbreak with high population density in cities which is challenging to create social distancing, made worse by generally poor hygiene and often low (health) literacy. Additionally, some COVID-19 cases remain asymptomatic; so it is difficult to predict the epidemic outbreak that may introduces further difficulty in diagnosis of newer cases. Finally, healthcare workers across the globe were infected at high rates during the MERS and SARS outbreaks, so Nepal has to initiate health workers’ training including simulation exercises to provide health staff with a clearer picture of the complexities and challenges associated with COVID-19 and containing potential outbreaks.

This editorial has a very different time span between submission and publication than the one highlighted last week on the BU Research Blog (see details here!).  This  COVID-19 editorial took exactly one month between submission and publication, the one mentioned last week took  three-and-a-half years between submission and publication.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Reference:

  1. Asim, M., Sathian, B., van Teijlingen, E.R., Mekkodathil, A., Subramanya, S.H., Simkhada, P. (2020) COVID-19 Pandemic: Public Health Implications in Nepal, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 10 (1): 817-820. https://www.nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/article/view/28269

Congratulations to Psychology colleagues

open access, Publishing, writing

This week the journal BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth  accepted a new paper written by three Bournemouth University Psychologists.  The paper ‘Be Quiet and Man Up: A Qualitative Questionnaire Study into Men Who Experienced Birth Trauma’ is written by Emily Daniels, Emily Arden-Close and Andrew Mayers [1] . The paper, using online questionnaires, argues that fathers reported that witnessing their partner’s traumatic birth affected them. They felt this affected their mental health and relationships long into the postnatal period. However, there is no nationally recognised support in place for fathers to use as a result of their experiences. The participants attributed this to being perceived as less important than women in the postnatal period, and maternity services’ perceptions of the father more generally. Implications include ensuring support is available for mother and father following a traumatic birth, with additional staff training geared towards the father’s role.

This paper adds to the growing pool of publications by Bournemouth University staff on men and maternity care.  Earlier research work has been published in The Conversation [2] and  the Journal of Neonatal Nursing [3-4].

 

Well done!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal health (CMMPH) and Associate Editor BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth

 

References:

  1. Daniels, E., Arden-Close, E., Mayers, A. (2020)  Be Quiet and Man Up: A Qualitative Questionnaire Study into Men Who Experienced Birth Trauma, BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth  (accepted).
  2. Mayers, A. (2017) Postnatal depression: men get it too, The Conversation, 20 November https://theconversation.com/postnatal-depression-men-get-it-too-87567
  3. Ireland, J., Khashu, M., Cescutti-Butler, L., van Teijlingen, E., Hewitt-Taylor, J. (2016) Experiences of fathers with babies admitted to neonatal care units: A review of the literature, Journal of Neonatal Nursing 22(4): 171–176.
  4. Fisher, D., Khashu, M, Adama, E, Feeley, N, Garfield, C, Ireland, J, Koliouli F, Lindberg, B., Noergaard, B., Provenzi, L., Thomson-Salo, F., van Teijlingen, E (2018) Fathers in neonatal units: Improving infant health by supporting the baby-father bond & mother-father co-parenting Journal of Neonatal Nursing 24(6): 306-312 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnn.2018.08.007

New Social Work textbook edited by BU Sociologist

Publishing, student research, writing

Introducing Social WorkThe international social science publisher SAGE published a new textbook this week under the title Introducing Social Work. This textbook, edited by BU’s  Professor in Sociology Jonathan Parker, has a contribution from FHSS lecturer  Dr.Sally Lee and FHSS PhD student Orlanda Harvey.  A total of 29 chapters cover a wide-range of social work issues in 424 pages.

 

Congratulations!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

BUCRU & RDS SW

NHS

  

Please note that Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit (BUCRU) and NIHR RDS SW (Research Design Service South West) offices are currently closed due to Coronavirus.  Staff are still working and able to offer research advice remotely,

Please contact bucru@bournemouth.ac.uk in the first instance.

We are looking forward to working with you all face to face when this is over.

Latest CMMPH publication by Dr. Alison Taylor

international, open access, Publishing, writing

Congratulations to Dr. Alison Taylor in the Centre for Midwifery,Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) whose third PhD paper  has just been accepted by the International Breastfeeding Journal.  Alison’s paper ‘Commercialisation and commodification of breastfeeding: video diaries by first-time mothers’ reminds us that many of aspects of our lives are increasingly commercialised in post-modern society.  Although breastfeeding is perhaps a late comer to this process in recent years, it too has seen significant commercialisation facilitated by social media and our obsession with celebrity culture.

This paper explores how the commercialisation and commodification of breastfeeding impacts mothers’ experiences of breastfeeding.  The paper highlights that women preparing for breastfeeding are exposed to increasing commercialisation.  When things do not go to plan, women are even more exposed to commercial solutions. The impact of online marketing strategies fuelled their need for paraphernalia so that their dependence on such items became important aspects of their parenting and breastfeeding experiences.   Dr. Taylor and her co-authors  offer new insights into how advertising influenced mothers’ need for specialist equipment and services. Observing mothers in their video diaries, provided valuable insights into their parenting styles and how this affected their breastfeeding experience.

The International Breastfeeding Journal is an Open Access journal owned by Springer.

 

References:

  1. Taylor, A.M., van Teijlingen, E., Alexander, J., Ryan, K. (2020) Commercialisation and commodification of breastfeeding: video diaries by first-time mothers, International Breastfeeding Journal (accepted).
  2. Taylor A, van Teijlingen, E.,Ryan K, Alexander J (2019) ‘Scrutinised, judged & sabotaged’: A qualitative video diary study of first-time breastfeeding mothers, Midwifery 75: 16-23.
  3. Taylor, A.M., van Teijlingen, E., Alexander, J., Ryan, K. (2019) The therapeutic role of video diaries: A qualitative study involving breastfeeding mothers, Women & Birth 32(3):276-83. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1871519218300064

Donning the ‘Slow Professor’

Centre for Excellence in Learning, Fusion themes, international, open access, Publishing, Women's Academic Network, writing

Congratulations to the Bournemouth authors who published the paper ‘Donning the ‘Slow Professor’: A Feminist Action Research Project’ earlier this month [1].  This paper was published in the journal Radical Teacher.  The paper argues that the corporatisation of Higher Education has introduced new performance measurements as well as an acceleration of academic tasks creating working environments characterised by speed, pressure and stress. This paper discusses findings from a qualitative, feminist participatory action research (PAR) study undertaken by an interdisciplinary team of women academics at a modern, corporate university in England. The study illuminates how corporatized HE erodes faculty autonomy, degrades learning environments, damages professional satisfaction and health. Strategies for resistance and liberation developed through the PAR process are discussed.

The writing collective for this paper comprised: Sara Ashencaen Crabtree, Ann Hemingway, Sue Sudbury, Anne Quinney, Maggie Hutchings, Luciana Esteves, Shelley Thompson, Helen Jacey, Anita Diaz, Peri Bradley, Jenny Hall, Michele Board, Anna Feigenbaum, Lorraine Brown, Vanessa Heaslip,  and Liz Norton.

Reference: Ashencaen Crabtree, S., Hemingway, A., Sudbury, S., Quinney, A., Hutchings, M., Esteves, L., Thompson, S., Jacey, H., Diaz, A., Bradley, P., Hall, J., Board, M., Feigenbaum, A., Brown, L., Heaslip, V., Norton, L. (2020) Donning the ‘Slow Professor’: A Feminist Action Research Project , Radical Teacher, Vol. 116

Nepal reproductive health paper published yesterday

international, Publishing, student research, writing

Congratulations on the latest paper published yesterday by Dr. Preeti Mahato in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Reproductive Health (CMMPH) and colleagues.   This paper ‘Factors associated with contraceptive use in rural Nepal: Gender and decision-making’ [1], is freely available for the next 49 days through our personalized link: click here! 

 

This research paper in the journal Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare reports on a secondary analysis of pas a quantitative cross-sectional study in four villages of a hilly district in Nepal.  This authors found that gender was associated with current/ever use of contraceptives but decision-making was not found associated with current/eve use of contraceptives.  And, as perhaps was to be expected, socio-economic factors such as husband’s and wife’s education; and indicators showing sharing of childcare responsibilities were found to be associated with contraceptive use.   the paper concludes that educational, health promotional and family planning programmes involving husbands are needed to promote use of contraceptives.


Preeti’s co-authors are based at Dorset County Hospital in Dorchester, at CMMPH and at Singapore Clinical Research Institute/Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School, Singapore.

 

Reference:

  1. Mahato, P., van Teijlingen, E., De Souza, N., Sheppard, Z. (2020) Factors associated with contraceptive use in rural Nepal: gender and decision-making, Sexual & Reproductive Healthcare 24: 100507 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.srhc.2020.100507

 

Medical textbook translated into Spanish

Centre for Excellence in Learning, international, Publishing, writing

This week saw the publication of Psicología y sociología aplicadas a la medicina [1].  This is a translated version of the fourth edition of Psychology & Sociology Applied to Medicine: An Illustrated Colour Text  [2] which was published last year by the international publishing house Elsevier.  This textbook for medical students is edited by Bournemouth University’s Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, who is a Medical Sociologist and Prof. Gerry Humphries, who is Professor in Health Psychology at the School of Medicine, University of St Andrews.

Una sólida herramienta que aporta a los lectores valiosos conocimientos sobre los provesos psicológicos y sociológicos, fundamentales para proporcionar una atención personalizada.  Obra extremadamente relevatne para el currículo y la práctica médica actual, donde se hace cada vez más hincapié en el lugar que ocupa la medicina en la sociedad y en la enfermedad como producto de las circunstancias psicológicas y sociales, más que como un mero fenómeno biológico.   Los temas se presentan resumidos visualmente enuna doble página. Se acompañan con casos que refuerzan la comprensión de los conceptos fundamentales y con cuadros resumen y cuestiones para la reflexión.   Ayuda a apreciar el lado “no científico” de la medicina; lo importante que es entender de dónde viene el paciente, geográfica e ideológicamente. Además, aborda a la perfección temas tan actuales, como las dificultades sociales derivadas de las pruebas genéticas.

References:

  1. van Teijlingen, E. & Humphris, G. (Eds.) (2020) Psicología y sociología aplicadas a la medicina (Spanish translation), Madrid: Elsevier España [ISBN 978-84-9113-674-3/eISBN 978-84-9113-713-9].
  2. van Teijlingen, E. & Humphris, G. (Eds.) (2019) Psychology & Sociology Applied to Medicine: An Illustrated Colour Text (4th Edn), Edinburgh: Elsevier.

Book review published by BU sociologist

Publishing, writing

The international journal Sociological Research Online published (online first)  a review of  the book The Mood of the World by Heinz Bude and published by Polity.   This is an interesting short  sociological book about mood, reviewed by Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen.  Bude’s book covers a broad analysis on the mood of the current situation and the function of collective moods. He notes that people live and make everyday decisions not only through reason or based on theory but also because of their feelings and emotions. Moreover, mood acts as a key component for the human being as a whole. Instead of intellect, people structure and find themselves as a part of the world through collective experiences. As Bude says “The world is present in mood but, instead of outside me, I find myself within it” (page 23).   But mood is also personal according to Bude since “Depending on my mood, I am capable of anything or nothing” (page vii).

 

Reference:

  1. van Teijlingen, E. (2020) The Mood of the World by Heinz Bude (book review), Sociological Research Online (Online First)

Gender in Conflict Conference: WAN-funded event

conferences, Women's Academic Network

On Wednesday 9 October 2019 Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers and I hosted an international and intersectional conference involving staff, students and Erasmus colleagues to debate issues of gender, violence and conflict in contemporary societies. We were very fortunate to receive funding from the Women’s Academic Network for this event, and for additional guest speakers who will be visiting BU in the coming months to contribute to discussion on this theme.

The focus of our ‘Gender in Conflict’ conference was to provide a platform for discussion and reflection on conceptualisations of gender and violence that have heightened visibility in post-conflict environments. We asked contributors to consider what we can learn from questions of gendered violence in a fragile international context and whether international lessons can be applied to social environments in the UK.

The aims were:

  1. To de-colonise and de-exoticise knowledge about gendered violence in war and post-conflict contexts abroad by going beyond stereotypical assumptions and representations;
  2. To interpret contemporary UK conceptualisations of gendered violence through an alternative lens inspired by international experience.

We were fortunate to have the opportunity of the Erasmus-funded presence of two visiting Kosovar colleagues who presented at this event.  Dr Linda Gusia and Assoc. Prof. Nita Luci are the founders and directors of the Programme for Gender Studies and Research at University of Prishtina, Kosovo. They are highly visible women’s rights activists in Kosovo. The post-conflict situation in Kosovo poses unexpected challenges to equal rights not only arising from classic patriarchal cultural legacies but also from masculinity reiterations in the totalising field of international intervention.

We were also joined by two BU criminologists of our own Department for Social Sciences who are working in related fields: Jade Levell on gang crimes in the UK and Dr Shovita Dhakal Adhikari on agency and interventions within human trafficking in Nepal. This conference emerged from our own academic interests in questions of gendered hate crime in the UK (Dr Jane Healy) and on questions of social justice in transnational and post-conflict settings (Dr Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers).

Stephanie welcomes participants

Stephanie opened the conference by encouraging contributors and audience members to reflect upon the transferability of interpreting phenomena we often consider in their specific contexts alone and the limitations arising from differences in our epistemological framings of analyses, contingent on such context and distinctions such as ‘the Global South’. Questions of cultural translation, power, language and positioning can be perceived or experienced as barriers to engagement, rather than opportunities to share best practice. The aims of the conference were to critically re-envisage our contemporary conceptualisations of such concepts on the basis of comparison and shared reflection.

Jade Levell was our first speaker, with a paper entitled:  “The competing masculinities of gang-involved men who experienced domestic violence/abuse in childhood”. Jade’s presentation, drawn from her PhD thesis, considers the conflicted and competing gender performances by marginalised men who have been drawn into gangs in the UK. She demonstrated how these men are performing hegemonic masculinity in an attempt to claim power where they have none. This is conveyed through a language and symbolic rhetoric of war and honour.

Jade Levell introduces her research

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nita Luci then spoke about “Researching Gender in the Balkans” as she traced the recent history of gender studies research in Kosovo. Her presentation began during a period where few academics were interested in looking at gendered experiences in the region to the emergence of the Programme for Gender Studies and Research in contemporary Kosovo. Through this timeframe, she highlighted the simultaneous re-framing and changing conceptualisations of masculinities in Kosovo.

 

 

Visiting scholar Nita Luci from University of Prishtina

 

 

 

Linda Gusia’s paper took this conceptualisation further. In “Recognition of Sexual Violence in Kosovo after the War” Linda highlighted the conflict between the hyper visibility of war-time sexual violence and a complete silencing of questions of gender and nationalism before the war. She considered how sexual violence against women was propagated by men, as an attack on the nation’s male gaze. Through a nationalist lens the concept of heroism was the prevailing public image and discourse. There was limited space for women’s own conceptualisation of the war as their stories were reframed through a narrative of sacrifice, martyrdom and atonement.

Visiting scholar Linda Gusia

In her paper entitled “Exploring Child Vulnerabilities: pre- and post-disaster in Nepal”, Shovita Dhakal Adhikari demonstrated similar patterns of silencing of women’s and girl’s experiences of human trafficking in Nepal. Shovita critiqued the application of Westernised concepts and labels to Nepalese society, particularly in regard to discourses of vulnerable victims in need of ‘rescue and protect’. Here again, women’s bodies are being controlled as a method of protection.

BU’s Shovita Dhakal Adhikari shares her research on child trafficking narratives in Nepal

 

Lastly, Stephanie chaired a panel discussion of all of the speakers, entitled “Inverting the gaze: Juxtaposing gender and conflict in transitional societies abroad and the UK”. This produced a lively debate around concepts of competing masculinities, vulnerabilities and visibilities of marginalised voices that could be drawn from all case studies presented. The conference drew to a close with contributors and audience members agreeing that this was an energising and engaging series of papers that showcased similarities in constructions of gender and gendered violence, both in the UK and abroad.

Participant contributions

Two further speakers who were unable to attend this conference at short notice were re-scheduled to visit BU this academic year:

  • Dr Emma Milne from Plymouth presented on Criminal Justice Responses to Maternal Filicide: Judging the failed mother on 13 February 2020.
  • Dr Hannah Mason-Bish will visit on 23 March 2020 to discuss Gender and Hate Crime.

For further details or discussion please contact: jhealy@bournemouth.ac.uk or sssievers@bournemouth.ac.uk