Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University
Congratulations to BU’s Equality and Diversity Adviser James Palfreman-Kay whose application to HEFCE’s ‘Catalyst Fund: Tackling hate crime and online harassment on campus‘ has been successful. He is one of 40 academic recipients of funding at universities and colleges throughout England. Applications have been assessed by a panel of HEFCE staff and external experts from across relevant areas of knowledge particular to student safeguarding.
Congratulations!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
Last week, Prof Ann Hemingway, Prof Adele Ladkin and Dr Holly Crossen-White joined European research colleagues in Ostend, Belgium for a SAIL Project bi-annual team meeting. Over two days all research partners from four different European countries had the opportunity to share their initial research data from pilot projects being developed within each country for older people. The BU team will be undertaking the feasibility study for the SAIL project and will be drawing together all the learning from the various interventions created by the other partners.
Dr. Pramod Regmi, Lecturer in International Health in the Faculty of Health & Social Care, wrote in today’s edition of my Republica under the title ‘Health for all’. This article in one of Nepal’s national daily newspapers my Republica, is co-authored with Mr. Bhagirath Yogy, a BBC journalist based in London. 
The idea of universal health insurance is high on the international agenda as it is regarded as a potential solution to offering universal health care, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Too many people across the globe have no or poor access to health care when they need it and national or local health insurance can help some populations in improving their access to health workers and health facilities.
Congratulations!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
Congratulations to Dr. Hyun-Joo Lim Senior Lecturer in Sociology at BU who has just written an interesting piece on human rights issues faced by North Korean female defectors in China in The Conversation. You can access this article by clicking here!
Well done!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
Dr. Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences has just co-published a comprehensive study on state-building in Kosovo. The study has be co-created with colleagues and postgraduate students from the wider region and funded by the Open Society Foundation, Kosovo.
The report is freely available here! This study critically explores the background to success and failure of different aspects of international policy interventions and local civic capacities for development. Aspects covered included: unintended consequences and dilemmas around the internationally facilitated processes of institution-building and ‘good-governance’ reform; reconciliation; cultural heritage protection; and educational reform.
Congratulations!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
Last week saw the publication of a piece by BU Professors Vanora Hundley and Edwin van Teijlingen in The Conversation under the title: “Why UK midwives stopped the campaign for ‘normal birth’”. The editor of The Conversation invited the authors to write in reply to the statement: “According to media reports, women will no longer be told they should have an intervention-free birth and midwives will be encouraged to use terms a “physiological birth” rather than “normal birth”. We are looking for an expert to comment on this.”
The resulting article is the result of a quite long process of writing a draft, which was initially edited by The Conversation in a way the authors did not feel represented what they wanted to say. In our original submission we raised the role of the media with regard to responsible reporting, but it seems this was a step too far. In submitting a re-written version, which was edited again before it came back to the authors, we were advised that academics should not ‘blame the media’ since that avoids addressing the issue, but what if the media really does have a role? After seven or eight major alterations we reached and an agreed version that we think is a balance and fairly easy to read newspaper article. Our new book Midwifery, Childbirth and the Media due to be published by Palgrave Macmillan will cover these media issue in greater detail.
Professors Vanora Hundley & Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
Today the journal BMC Health Services Research accepted our scientific paper ‘The contribution of female community health volunteers (FCHVs) to maternity care in Nepal: a qualitative study’ [1]. FCHVs who form an integral part of community-based primary healthcare system of Nepal. Some 50,000 FCHVs working across the country distribute temporary contraception or refer for other methods of family planning in formal healthcare centres.
As the lowest level healthcare provider working in local communities, FCHVs deliver basic maternal healthcare services to pregnant women and mothers in rural communities. The paper concludes that no research to date has been able to demonstrate that the FCHVs roles themselves have an impact on maternal mortality or other health outcomes; quantitative studies are needed to do this.
The paper is based on Dr. Sarita Panday’s recently completed PhD at The University of Sheffield, Prof. Paul Bissell Dean of the School of Human and Health Sciences at the University of Huddersfield, Prof. Padam Simkhada, BU Visiting Faculty and Associate Dean for Global Engagement at Liverpool John Moores University and BU’s Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health.
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Congratulations to Dr. Steve Keen in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences and BU PhD graduate Dr. Pratik Adhikary on the acceptance today of their paper ‘Risky work: Accidents among Nepalese migrant workers in Malaysia, Qatar and Saudi ‘ by the journal Health Prospect [1]. This is a peer-reviewed public health journal, part of Nepal Journals Online, and the journal is Open Access. Nepal Journals OnLine (NepJOL) provides access to Nepalese published research, and increase worldwide knowledge of indigenous scholarship.
The Faculty of Health & Social Sciences has a growing number of publications on health and migration research, especially on the health and well-being of migrants from Nepal [2-5].
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
References:
NoObesity
The government’s key priority of reducing childhood obesity through adult education (as announced by Jeremy Hunt in Sept 2015), prompted BU’s Denyse King to write a proposal to Health Education England. Denyse is a Midwifery Lecturer / Public Health Practitioner in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) at Bournemouth University. The proposal outlined her wish to develop a stand-alone mobile learning resource for health workers who care for families of overweight or obese children, and for families who need to identify individual needs to facilitate behavioural changes.
The development of this project pivoted on putting patients and the public in the centre of the process. Patients and the public were engaged through focus groups where insights were gathered to identify the challenges and issues to the problem. A series of online focus groups were undertaken with service users and professionals to understand the key challenges and issues respondents came across when trying to prevent/manage overweight and obesity. Key themes from the focus groups were:
Topic experts were identified and invited to join the project steering group where they provided the governance and steer of the overall development of this project whilst Denyse King wrote the content. The following Apps have been developed as a result and will be available to all as free download in IOS and Android platforms from late September 2017:
Denyse would like to thank Dr. Joanne Newton project proposal support, Felicity Hargreaves and Helen Bingham for approval of the final project proposall. Thanks to all those who contributed to answering the research questions, as well as those who tested and fed back on the prototype, and also to Bournemouth University, University of Southampton, and NHS England for their support of this project.
List of the members of the steering group
| Name | Job Title | Organisation | Steering Group Role |
| Em Rahman | Head of Public Health Workforce Development Programmes | Health Education England (Wessex) | Steering Group Chair |
| Alison Potter | Technology Enhanced Learning Lead (South) | Health Education England (South) | Deputy-Chair |
| Dr. Jenny Godson (MBE) | National Lead for Oral Health Improvement | Public Health England | Dental and dental aspects of nutrition |
| Prof. Edwin van Teijingen | Professor – Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health | Bournemouth University | Research supervision and education governance |
| Dr. Juliet McGrattan | General Practitioner | Cumbria Medical Chambers | GP role governance |
| Kate King-Hicks | Health and Wellbeing Programme Lead | Public Health England (South East) | Obesity governance |
| Tony Hewett | Intervention Manager and behaviour change specialist | Miltoncross Academy | School staff role governance |
| Dr. Jo Walker | Consultant Paediatrician | Portsmouth Hospitals Trust | Consultant doctors role governance |
| Dr. Wendy Marsh | Lead Midwife for Safeguarding | Portsmouth Hospitals Trust | Safeguarding governance |
| Kate Lees | Consultant in Public Health and Dietitian | Lees & Latouze | Nutrition governance |
| Denyse King | Lecturer in Midwifery and Public Health Practitioner | Bournemouth University | Content author and governance |
Next months sees the publication of our latest article on research ethics in developing countries [1]. Our paper argues that despite a significant increase in health research activity in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) in recent years, only limited work has been done to address ethical concerns. Most ethics committees in LMICs lack the authority and/or the capacity to monitor research in the field. This is important since not all research, particularly in LMICs region, complies with ethical principles, sometimes this is inadvertently or due to a lack of awareness of their importance in assuring proper research governance. With several examples from Nepal, this paper reflects on the steps required to obtain informed consents and highlights some of the major challenges and barriers to seeking informed consent from research participants. At the end of this paper, we also offer some recommendations around how can we can promote and implement optimal informed consent taking process.
The paper is co-written by six authors, and interestingly five are graduates of the University of Aberdeen. These Aberdeen University graduates are currently affiliated with five different universities. Four of who are based in the UK at: the University of Liverpool, the University of the West of England, the University of Oxford, and in Bournemouth University’s Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) and one in the USA: Georgetown University. The sixth co-author, Nirmal Aryal, is currently a PhD student at the University of Otago in Dunedin (New Zealand). Whilst Liverpool-based researcher Dr. Pramod Regmi is heading back for Bournemouth University to become a lecturer in International Health in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences this autumn.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
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BU professor Edwin van Teijlingen from the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perianal Health (CMMPH) had the honour of being invited to speak at a workshop ran yesterday by the Sheffield Institute for International Development. The workshop ‘Nepal: Reconstruction, Resilience and Development’ was organised by the University of Sheffield.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen spoke about endemic corruption in Nepal and opportunities that are offered by disasters such as earthquakes for more corruption. He pointed out that there is little research on corruption in Nepal, despite its low ranking on the international Corruption Perceptions Index. The presentation can be viewed here: Nepal earthquake corruption 2017 . 
He pointed out that disasters are confusing events with often loads of money and relief aid arriving under chaotic conditions. Immediate emergency aid needs to be distributed to unknown people (‘those affected’), in difficult to access areas, under often chaotic socio-political conditions.
He also reminded the audience that corruption (and corrupt behaviour) are not limited to low-income countries. He highlighted the Ariana Grande case in Manchester (UK) where thousands falsely claimed to have been at the original attacked concert when applying for a ticket for the Manchester One Love concert.
This month has been exceptionally good for BU publications in the field of midwifery and maternity care. Two PhD students has their articles published in international academic journals, one member of staff had a textbook chapter published, an interdisciplinary team has been accepted for publication in the British Journal of Midwifery, and a member of the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) co-authored this month’s editorial in the Journal of Asian Midwives as well as an epidemiology paper on the HPV (Human Papilloma Virus) in Nepal. 
The first of this success story was CMMP PhD student Preeti Mahato whose her latest paper ‘Factors related to choice of place of birth in a district in Nepal’ appeared in the Elsevier journal Sexual & Reproductive Healthcare [1]. The second PhD paper was also based on research in Nepal this time by Sheetal Sharma whose paper ‘Evaluation a Community Maternal Health Programme: Lessons Learnt’ appeared in Journal of Asian Midwives [2]. The textbook chapter was by Dr. Jenny Hall who contributed a chapter to the latest edition of Mayes Midwifery , which is the classic midwifery textbook and now in its 15th edition [3]. The interdisciplinary paper is by Angela Warren, service user and carer coordinator PIER partnership, Dr Mel Hughes, principal academic in social work, academic lead for PIER partnership, and Dr Jane Fry and Dr Luisa Cescutti-Butler who are both senior lecturers in midwifery in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) [4]. The latest issue of the Nepal Journal of Epidemiology carried a CMMPH co-authored paper on the HPV in young women in Nepal [5]. The final piece, an editorial, appeared yesterday in the latest issue of the Journal of Asian Midwives [6].
Congratulations to all authors!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
References:
Congratulations to Faculty of Health & Social Sciences (FHSS) PhD student Folashade Alloh and Dr. Pramod Regmi, newly appointed lecturer in International Health. They just published ‘Effect of economic and security challenges on the Nigerian health sector’ in the journal African Health Sciences. The paper is Open Access and can be found here!
Well done!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
The Health Services Journal published a commentary this week on Community Hospitals [1]. This online article is written by Dr. Emma Pitchforth who is based at RAND Europe in Cambridge (& BU Visiting Faculty), Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen (Faculty of Health & Social Sciences) and Dr. Ellen Nolte based at the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies. 
The authors highlight the recently completed NIHR study on Community Hospitals [2]. The notion of a Community Hospital in the UK is evolving from the traditional model of a local hospital staffed by general practitioners and nurses and serving mainly rural populations. Along with the diversification of models, there is a renewed policy interest in community hospitals and their potential to deliver integrated care. However, there is a need to better understand the role of different models of community hospitals within the wider health economy and an opportunity to learn from experiences of other countries to inform this potential.
With ease of access and a sense of homeliness, there is potential for Community Hospitals to be better integrated into NHS in England. The authors suggest that a more strategic role for ‘traditional’ Community Hospitals might be timely within the NHS in England. They further conclude that if challenges around Community Hospitals are addressed and their within the English health system is properly defined, they could provide positive benefits to the health service. It seems that, if done correctly, Community Hospitals could be a traditional solution to help address some of the modern day challenges of the NHS.The full NIHR report is Open Access and can be found here!
Last year the research team had already published a scoping review article from the NIHR study [3].
References:
On the tenth anniversary of the international Open Access journal PLOS ONE we received an email to inform us that one of our articles was among the top ten per cent of most cited articles in this journal. The email referred to our paper ‘Factors influencing adherence to antiretroviral treatment in Nepal: A mixed-methods study’ [1]. Not bad considering that PLOS ONE has published over 4,300 articles since its inception.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
The American Journal of Men’s Health published our latest paper on obesity prevention in men. The paper ‘Clinical Effectiveness of Weight Loss and Weight Maintenance Interventions for Men: A Systematic Review of Men-Only Randomized Controlled Trials (The ROMEO Project)’ originates from a collaboration between BU and various universities in Scotland, led by the University of Aberdeen [1].
This systematic review paper found that reducing diets produced better weight loss than physical activity alone. The most effective interventions combined reducing diets, exercise, and behaviour change techniques . Group interventions produced favourable weight loss results. The paper reports that once engaged, men remained committed to a weight loss intervention.
The paper concludes that weight loss for men is best achieved and maintained with the combination of a reducing diet, increased physical activity, and behaviour change techniques. Strategies to increase engagement of men with weight loss services to improve the reach of interventions are needed. This paper is the thirteenth paper from a large NIHR grant [2-13].
The American Journal of Men’s Health is an open access, peer-reviewed resource for cutting-edge information regarding men’s health and illness. It is, however worth noting that although our paper is formally published in July 2017 it has been online for two years! The journal’s website states clearly that the article was first published online on June 30, 2015 BUT the issue in which it appears is published is July 1, 2017!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
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On Wednesday 28th June, the Writing Academy will be hosting a Lunchbyte session with Sara Ashencaen Crabtree. During the session Sara will talk about her personal publishing experience, her approaches to research and writing, her tips on developing a publication strategy, working with co-authors, reviewers and editors. She will talk about all types of publishing drawing on personal experience, focusing on international reach.
Aims:
As promised to our audience at the 31st International Confederation of Midwifery Triennial Congress in Toronto today: the slides used on our session ‘Mental health training for community maternity workers in Nepal. The slides in PDF format can be accessed here: Nepal THET ICM 2017. Our project brought together academics, midwives, nurses, and other health workers in Nepal and the UK to help in the training of Auxiliary Nurse Midwives in Nawalparasi on key aspects of mental health and mental health promotion. The project led by Bournemouth University was funded under the Health Partnership Scheme (HPS) which is managed by a London-based organisation called THET (Tropical Health & Education Trust).
Can I also take the opportunity to list all our collaborators in Nepal and UK:
Padam Simkhada, Bhimsen Devkota, Shyam K. Maharjan, Lokendra Sherchan, Ram Chandra Silwal, Krishna Acharya, Bishnu G.C., Ram K. Maharjan, Bibha Simkhada, Jillian Ireland, Jane Stephens, Colette Fanning, Edwin van Teijlingen, Geeta Sharma, Samridhi Pradhan, Seam MacKay, Ish Fawcett, Andrea Lawrie, Dave Havelock, Liz Murphy, Rose Pringle, Sapana Bista, Chrissy Reeves & Flora Douglas.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health
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BRIAN drop-in surgery – Lansdowne
Postgraduate Research Summer Social – 1 week to go!
MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025 Call
ERC Advanced Grant 2025 Webinar MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025
Update on UKRO services
European research project exploring use of ‘virtual twins’ to better manage metabolic associated fatty liver disease
Research Information Network
Horizon Europe Work Programme 2025 Published
Horizon Europe 2025 Work Programme pre-Published