BU Research Blog

28 January 2016

SPARCing up the heart in flies…

The heart of a fly. Two cells wide and capable of beatign 5 times per second. Genes controlling the hearts contractile function are conserved in humans.

The heart of a fly. Two cells wide and capable of beating five times per second, the fly heart is helping us unlock the secrets governing our own heart’s function.

Research funded by the British Heart Foundation and conducted both here and at the Sanford-Burnham-Prebys Medical Discover Institute near San Diego in California, is to be published in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics.

The work identified a genetic pathway linking cardiac function with expression of a protein called SPARC (Secreted Protein Acidic and Rich in Cysteine). In humans, increases in SPARC accompany cardiac ageing, inflammatory disease, obesity and cancer. As a consequence SPARC is a potentially very important therapeutic target in a wide range of important clinical settings. Our work, which utilised the fly Drosophila, demonstrated that heart dysfunction (cardiomyopathy) could be cured by reducing SPARC gene expression. Establishing this link allows us to ascertain the mechanism by which SPARC contributes to cardiac function in humans. Whilst the human heart is significantly more complex than that of a fly, their early development and function are controlled by similar genetic pathways; evolution may have added to the human heart but it has not changed its fundamentals. Hence, we’re able to learn a lot about ourselves by studying this simple, yet very sophisticated, little insect.

28 January 2016

Editorial by Dr. Way in top journal highlights midwifery education

Fusion, international, Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

The forthcoming editorial in Midwifery (Elsevier) by FHSS’s Dr Susan Way highlights the importance of midwifery education and its educators.[1] This editorial makes reference to the recent series on midwifery in The Lancet.[2] Of course, midwifery plays a vital role in improving the quality of care of women and infants globally. Dr. Way reminds us that consistent, high-quality midwifery care has a vital role to play in the reduction of maternal and newborn mortality. Outcomes are enhanced when care is led by midwives who are educated, licensed, regulated, integrated in the health system, and working in interdisciplinary teams, with ready access to specialised care when needed.

Midwifery one of the leading academic journals globally in the field of midwifery and maternity care. Dr.Way is based in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health in FHSS at the Lansdowne Campus.

Congratulations!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

References:

Way, S. (2015) Consistent, quality midwifery care: How midwifery education and the role of the midwife teacher are important contributions to the Lancet Series, Midwifery (online first) see: http://www.midwiferyjournal.com/article/S0266-6138(16)00021-8/abstract
Renfrew, M.J., McFadden, A., Bastos, M.H. et al. (2014) Midwifery and quality care: findings from a new evidence-informed framework for maternal and newborn care. the Lancet. 384:1129–1145.

26 January 2016

Systematic Review Masterclass – 15-16 February 2016

PG research rfreeman

A reminder that this two-day Systematic Review Masterclass will be taking place at the Executive Business Centre, Holdenhurst Road on 15 & 16 February.

One way of collating and assessing the best possible evidence is through a method called ‘systematic reviewing’. Systematic reviewing is a specific research method whereby a structured, rigorous, and objective approach is used to provide a critical synthesis of the available evidence on a particular topic. This masterclass will examine the rationale for systematic reviews and take participants through the various elements of a systematic review: selecting (electronic) databases; literature searching; data extraction; data synthesis; interpretation and reporting.

Booking price and information: The fee of £200 for this masterclass includes two full days with the course facilitators, all refreshments and all class materials. Accomodation and travel costs are not included.

Book your place now at http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/masterclass-systematic-review-2016-tickets-18954206542 . Places must be booked by 1 February 2016.

For further information please contact: Tel: 01202 962184 or email: epegrum@bournemouth.ac.uk

25 January 2016

Presentation by PhD student Preeti Mahato Jan 27th.

international, PG research, student research Edwin van Teijlingen

On Wednesday Jan. 27th CMMPH PhD student Preeti Mahato will present her PhD research ideas under the title “Addressing quality of care and equity of services available at birthing centres to improve maternal and neonatal health in western Nepal.” Her presentation will be held at the Lansdowne Campus at 13.00 in room 301 in Royal London House.

Preeti’s research focuses on birthing centres in western Nepal; and quality and equity of service available at these facilities. In Nepal, birthing centres act as first contact point for the women seeking maternity services especially the basic obstetric care. The focus of this presentation will be to talk about the first review article Preeti Mahato wrote for the ‘Journal of Asian Midwives’ entitled “Birthing centres in Nepal: Recent development, obstacles and opportunities”. The article has been accepted for publication in June 2016 and focuses on introducing birthing centres, their current state of operation under the health system of Nepal, barriers they are facing and what could be done to improve their present state. The quality of care issue available at birthing centre is emphasised, since the number of these facilities are increasing however there is a growing trend to bypass and uptake services at hospitals. Despite barriers to utilisation of services at birthing centres, they can play an important role in increasing institutional delivery rate and proportion of births benefiting from a skilled birth attendant.

The second part of presentation will provide a brief summary on what Preeti has done since writing a review article, as she has worked on a systematic review on quality of basic obstetric care facilities in low and middle income countries.

Preeti Mahato has worked in the field of public health in Nepal for three years after completing her Master of Public Health. She has an interest in sexual and reproductive health, women’s health and maternal and child health. Working as a public health officer she was involved in maternal and neonatal health that developed her interest in pursuing a doctorate related to maternal and neonatal health. Part of her work in Nepal also included monitoring and supervision of birthing centres in rural areas of Nepal and that is how she became motivated to start a PhD at BU.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

24 January 2016

Sociology presentation at Dutch Annual Midwifery Conference (22 Jan. 2016)

international, Knowledge Transfer, Public engagement, Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

On Friday January 22nd 2016 FHSS Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen delivered a keynote address at the Annual Research Conference of the Dutch Midwifery Schools. The Dutch name for the event is ‘conferentie kennispoort’, in English ‘conference knowledge portal’ OR in a slightly different translation ‘conference knowledge gate’. The presentation aimed to get midwives, maternity care researchers and midwifery students and others in the audience to think differently about the world in which they work / practise. Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen used notions of a social versus a medical model in his talk. These are based on a number of sociology and midwifery publications of this concept over the past decade.[1-4]

Sociologists recognise two different approaches or philosophies as first a social model and, secondly, a medical model of childbirth. The social model stresses that childbirth is a physiological event that takes place in most women’s lives. The medical model highlights that childbirth is potentially pathological (or risky). In the latter view every pregnant woman is potentially at risk, hence she should deliver her baby in an obstetric hospital with its high-technology screening equipment supervised by obstetricians, the experts when something goes seriously wrong in childbirth. In other words, pregnancy and childbirth are only safe in retrospect.

References:

Bryers, HM, van Teijlingen E (2010) Risk, Theory, Social & Medical Models: a critical analysis of the concept of risk in maternity care, Midwifery 26: 488-96.
Ireland, J., van Teijlingen, E. (2013) Normal birth: social-medical model, The Practising Midwife 16 (11): 17-20.
van Teijlingen E (2005) Models of pregnancy and childbirth: A sociological analysis of the medical model, Sociol Res Online 10 (2) www.socresonline.org.uk/10/2/teijlingen.html
van Teijlingen E (2015) Sociology of Midwifery. In: Sociology for Midwives Deery R, et al. (eds.) Cambridge: Polity Press, 22-37.

21 January 2016

The power of a poster… and public involvement in research

conferences, Public engagement Lisa Andrews

A lot of people think of poster presentations at conferences as being a “waste of time” and “never read” but being able to condense a lot of information into a limited amount of space while still making it engaging for people reading the poster can have a lot of impact.

Lisa Gale-Andrews and Helen Allen from Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit prepared a poster on the involvement of patients and members of the public in developing a grant application. It was presented at the NCCPE Engage 2015 conference in December.

Now imagine their surprise when, almost 2 months later, the NIHR Director for Patient and Public Involvement in Research highlighted the poster (and subsequent publication of the work in Research Involvement and Engagement) as a “good learning tool for others” in his Blog. The Blog was then tweeted to his 3413 followers.

Helen at Engage 2015

As a result, the poster is going to be shared at various patient, public involvement and engagement training sessions. All that impact from one conference poster! So keep that in mind the next time you’re “only doing a poster”.

19 January 2016

New CMMPH international midwifery publication

international, Publishing, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

Congratulations to Professor Vanora Hundley in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) on the publication of her latest international paper ‘How do midwives in Slovenia view their professional status?’ [1].

The paper explores Slovenian midwives’ views of their professional status, linkng this to the participants’ educational background. Most participants did not consider midwifery to be a profession in its ow right. Midwives with secondary education were more likely to consider practical skills to be important than theoretical midwifery knowledge. In general Slovenian midwives did not feel enabled to practise autonomously causing them several ethical dilemmas. All participants with midwifery secondary school education thought that obstetrics jeopardises midwifery scope of practice, but only half of the B.Sc. participants thought this. One-fifth of all participants estimated that midwifery is also threatened by nursing. The respondents reported feeling a lack of control over their professional activity and policy making; however the majority of midwives claimed that they were willing to take on more responsibility for independent practice. The authors conclude that Slovenian midwifery cannot be considered to be a profession yet. It faces several hindrances, due to its historical development.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Reference:

Mivšek, P., Pahor, M., Hlebec, V., Hundley, V. (2015) How do midwives in Slovenia view their professional status? Midwifery 31(12):1193-201

19 January 2016

“Performative Social Science: What it is, What it isn’t, and What it has become”, Talk by Dr Kip Jones, Wed, 20th January 2016, Royal London House, R301, 1-2 pm

Centre for Excellence in Learning, conferences, Fusion, Knowledge Exchange, PG research, Public engagement, REF Subjects, Research Ethics, Research Integritiy Mastoureh Fathi

All staff and students welcome. Please feel free to bring your lunch.

Abstract:

“Performative Social Science” was a term first coined by Norman Denzin in 2001, the year that Kip Jones received his PhD and began to explore new ways to communicate Social Science findings to wider audiences.

What is Performative Social Science (PSS) then, Art or Science? It isn’t one or the other. It is enriching the ways in which Social Science subjects might be researched and/or findings disseminated or communicated to various communities. Ideally, audiences should be almost unaware of the seams where practitioners have cobbled together in-depth, substantial scholarship with artistic endeavor. PSS is defined as the use of tools from the Arts or Humanities in investigating and/or disseminating Social Science research.

The Seminar will explore Jones’ journey from early productions produced on his PC in his bedsit, to gatherings (physical and virtual) of like-minded academics (Illustrated above), to the production of a major short film based in solid qualitative research methods including auto-ethnography, and back again to ‘kitchen sink’ work, producing creative productions which inform his future efforts.

***

If you have any queries, please get in touch with seminar series coordinator Dr Mastoureh Fathi, mfathi@bournemouth.ac.uk

18 January 2016

I like a good spreadsheet!

Lisa Andrews

I’m Sharon Docherty and I have just joined the Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit (BUCRU) team as a Research Fellow in Quantitative Methods. My background is in Biology with a particular interest in Physiology and I’ve been involved in clinical research for the past 12 years. I also have lots of experience working with large datasets (too many years to think about) and love trying to figure out the best way of presenting results.

My main area of research interest is looking at the effects of clinical conditions (neck pain, Parkinson’s disease, diabetes) on people’s perception of vertical. How we perceive upright is dependent on our brain’s ability to integrate visual, vestibular (inner ear) and proprioceptive (positioning of joints) information. When the information from one of these systems is faulty, the brain has to overcome this by relying on signals from the other sources. This could lead to problems such as an increased risk of falling.

Some of you may already know me as I have taught across various programmes (Anatomy and Physiology, Research Methodology) within Health and Social Sciences. I’m also one of the co-founders and organisers of Bournemouth Café Scientifique, a public engagement forum for discussing scientific ideas.

So what will I be doing? As a member of the BUCRU team I am here to help you with any health related research you may be doing/thinking about doing. In particular, I can help with the design of quantitative studies as well as what to do with the collected data. I am also here to support you with developing grant proposals. You can find me on the 5^th floor of Royal London House or email me sdocherty@bournemouth.ac.uk.

17 January 2016

Latest BU Nursing publication

Centre for Excellence in Learning, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

Congratulations to Janet Scammell, Vanessa Heaslip and Emma Crowley in FHSS on their new publication which appeared at the very end of 2015. Their most recent paper is the first systematic review of service user involvement in non-mental health specific preregistration nurse education. The paper ‘Service user involvement in preregistration general nurse education: a systematic review’ is published in the current issue of the Journal of Clinical Nursing. [1]

Well done!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Reference:

Scammell, J., Heaslip, V., Crowley, E. (2015) ‘Service user involvement in preregistration general nurse education: a systematic review’ Journal of Clinical Nursing 25:53-69.

14 January 2016

Mental health & maternity care in Nepal: THET-funded training

international, open access Edwin van Teijlingen

A few days I posted a short report of our first session as part of the THET-funded project ‘Mental Health Training for Community-based Maternity Providers in Nepal’, see this previous post here. Yesterday we completed the final third day training of the first session of this BU-led project. Over three days we had 70 ANMs (Auxiliary Nurse Midwives) in attendance, which we think is (nearly) all such staff based in all birthing centres in the district (=province). The three days were the same, i.e. each session was repeated twice so each day one third of the ANMs could attend, and two-third could be at work in the birthing centre ensuring women could deliver safely.

As part of this project we send UK volunteers (health and/or education) experts to Nepal to offer high quality training in areas where it is most needed. Further detail on this BU-led THET project can be found in our scientific paper Mental health issues in pregnant women in Nepal published in the Nepal Journal of Epidemiology available through Open Access. Mental illness is still very much a taboo topic in Nepal as it has often a serious stigma attached to it. Moreover, the relatively short training of ANMs is often fairly basic and the national curriculum does not cover mental health issues in any detail. This joint project between Bournemouth University, Liverpool John Mooores University, Tribhuvan University and the local charity Green Tata Nepal addresses issues about mental health in general and in pregnant women and new mothers in particular. Tribhuvan University is the oldest university in Nepal and one of the ten largest universities in the world (based on student numbers). The project is multi-disciplinary involving midwives, (mental health) nurses, and doctors as well as global health researchers, educationalists and sociologists.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

11 January 2016

Fieldwork accidents: never the ones you expect

Edwin van Teijlingen

Bournemouth University, as all good universities, has an in-depth risk assessment form for staff to complete prior to their travel on university business. The form is required for all travel even it is on the train to Southampton for a research meeting. Before I left for Nepal late last year I completed the form, assessed the usual travel risk to a low-income country, including the risk food poisoning, malaria and car accidents. The latter is usually the most serious risk for a healthy educated academic traveller to a low-income country.

I have been to Nepal nearly twenty times, I have in many a house of office with low ceilings and low door frames, so why did I not duck deep enough this morning in the training centre we use for running our THET project. To add to my shame it was not even the first day in this training centre as we were here all day yesterday. The good thing is (as a sociologist) I got to do some in promptu participant observation in the local A&E in the health centre in Parasi. Not that I can use it in my research as I didn’t apply for ethical approval for this unique additional part of the fieldwork.

For the record, the A&E service in Parasi is excellent, but it helps, of course, that we are doing training with the support of the District Health Office and we were only two minutes driving away from the health post. The other good thing is that it hurts a little, but no damage done! ethical approval for this part of the fieldwork. The other good thing is that it hurts a little, but no damage done!

Finally, I would like to say “Thank you!” to the ANMs (Auxiliary Nurse Midwives) who pick up off the floor and my Nepali colleagues for worrying about me.

Professor Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

11 January 2016

Lunchtime Seminar with Dr Rosie Read – “Into the Field: undergraduate students and community-engaged ethnography”

rfreeman

You are cordially invited to this lunchtime seminar which is open to all students and staff.

Please feel free to bring your lunch.

Wednesday 13th January 2016

13.00 – 13.50pm

Studland House, S218

“Into the Field: undergraduate students and community-engaged ethnography”

How can undergraduate students learn to do ethnographic fieldwork? Is it feasible to ask them to design and undertake collaborative ethnographic research with community organisations, in a mutually beneficial fashion? This paper will reflect on recent work aimed at enhancing BA Sociology and Anthropology students’ practical understanding and appreciation of ethnography. It focuses on recent fieldwork students carried out in West Howe, Bournemouth, between October and December 2015, which involved intensive collaboration with a range of local organisations. It will discuss some of the pleasures and challenges of this enterprise, from the teacher’s (unit leader’s) perspective. Through an evaluation of which aspects of ethnographic research students’ enjoyed and (in some cases) excelled at, and which they struggled with, I will broach wider debates in social research about what ethnography is, what it is for, what is (or is not) unique about it.

Dr Rosie Read is a social anthropologist and principal lecturer / programme leader of BA Sociology and Anthropology in the Faculty of Social Sciences. Further information available here: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/author/rread/

http://staffprofiles.bournemouth.ac.uk/display/rread

8 January 2016

THET Mental Health Training for Maternity Providers started in Nepal

Knowledge Exchange, open access, Public engagement Edwin van Teijlingen

Today, after months of delay, UK volunteers managed to deliver the first THET-funded training as part of the BU-led project ‘Mental Health Training for Community-based Maternity Providers in Nepal’. The first serious delays occurred due to the devastating earthquake in April 2015 when we are just about to start our project. Then more delays happened due to the political unrest in the country after the signing of the new Constitution of Nepal in September 2015. Whilst there are still plenty of people living in make-shift shelters today in some of the more remote districts affected by the earthquake and there is still a serious shortage of petrol and cooking gas due to politically-driven blockages at the Indian-Nepali border, the situation is now safe enough to start bringing UK volunteers to Nepal.

MIDSON

Today’s first training was delivered in Kathmandu to our friends and colleagues at MIDSON, the Midwifery Society of Nepal (the equivalent of the Royal College of Midwives in the UK). Joining Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen to deliver the first training session to Nepali midwives is Dr. Bibha Simkhada from Liverpool John Moores University. Bibha is a nurse in Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust as well as BU Visiting Faculty. The audience at MIDSON was very helpful in giving feedback on the planned training in the southern district of Nawalparasi (starting Sunday 10th January). The agreement is to run a one-day training session for ANMs (Auxiliary Nurse Midwives), and run this three day in a row for one-third of all the birthing centre staff from across the district. This means that the government birthing centres can stay open with the other two-thirds on the staff on any one day. Further detail on this BU-led THET project can be found in our recent academic article, which is available through Open Access: click here.

Professor Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

3 January 2016

Editorial Journal of Asian Midwives

open access, PG research, Publishing, student research Edwin van Teijlingen

BU student Rachel Arnold was mentioned in the end-of-year editorial of the Asian Journal of Midwives. Rachel Arnold has conducted her PhD research in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health (CMMPH) on midwifery and maternity care provided in a hospital in Afghanistan. Her first PhD research work was published in the prestigious medical journal BJOG [1]. Moreover, she was very recently quoted on Afghan maternal mortality data in one of the best-known newspapers globally, namely in The New York Times [2].

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

References:

Arnold, R., van Teijlingen, E.R., Ryan, K., Holloway, I. (2015) Understanding Afghan health care providers: A qualitative study of the culture of care in a Kabul maternity hospital, BJOG 122: 260-267.
Nordland. R. (2015) ‘Reported Gains in Afghan Maternal Health Are Found to Be Implausible’ The New York Times Dec 4th, 2015. Available from: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/05/world/asia/afghanistan-maternal-mortality-rate.html

2 January 2016

Field visit to birthing centre in rural Nepal

international, PG research, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

Today, as part of several related maternity-care studies, one of Bournemouth University’s (BU) researchers visited a rural birthing centre in Nawalparasi. The first photo is the view from the birthing centre showing exactly how rural it is. This particular birthing centre is based close to the Indian border. It has been supported for over a year by Green Tara Nepal, an organisation which works closely with BU on a range of health and maternity-care projects. The birthing centre has been improved since our last visit one year ago. There now is a newly build decomposition pit for the disposal of placentas. There is a new postnatal recovery room, and the number of local women giving birth in the facility has been increasing! When we arrived a new baby had just been born an hour or so earlier (second photo with proud father on the right).

This and several neighbouring birthing centres are the focus of a PhD study by FHSS’s Preeti Mahato. She recently co-authored an editorial in Nepal Journal of Epidemiology on the role of birthing centres in post-earthquake Nepal [1]. Her PhD is supervised by Dr. Catherine Angell, Prof. Padam Simkhada, based at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) and who is also Visiting Faculty at BU, and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen.

The birthing centre also lies in the area where the charity Green Tara Nepal has been supporting groups for pregnant women and their mothers-in-law. The latter is an important group as they are still key decision-makers on maternity care questions related to their daughters-in-law [2]. The birthing centre is part of a wider intervention to improve the uptake of antenatal and postnatal care and skilled attendance at delivery. BU has been involved in evaluating this intervention with Green Tara Trust (UK) and LJMU for nearly a decade.

Some of the birthing centre staff will attend the mental health and maternity care training organised next week [3]. This training project is run by a consortium of BU, LJMU, and Tribhuvan University (the oldest university in Nepal). This mental health and maternity care project is supported by the Tropical Health & Education Trust (THET) as part of the Health Partnership Scheme, which is funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), and in the field our THET project is supported by Green Tara Nepal.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

References:

Mahato, P.K., Regmi, P.R., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Angell, C., Sathian, B. (2015) Birthing centre infrastructure in Nepal post 2015 earthquake. Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 5(4): 518-519. http://www.nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/article/view/14260/11579
Simkhada, B., Porter, M., van Teijlingen, E. (2010) The role of mothers-in-law in antenatal care decision-making in Nepal: A qualitative study. BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth 10(34) biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2393-10-34.pdf
van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Devkota, B., Fanning, P., Ireland, J., Simkhada, B., Sherchan, L., Silwal, R.C., Pradhan, S., Maharjan, S.K., Maharjan, R.K. (2015) Mental health issues in pregnant women in Nepal. Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 5(3): 499-501. http://www.nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/article/view/13607/11007

1 January 2016

First CMMPH editorials of 2016

international, open access, PG research, Publishing, student research Edwin van Teijlingen

Happy New Year and a healthy and successful 2016. I have the pleasure to announce the first two editorials published this year by CMMPH staff and students. Although I am slightly cheating as the editorials were really published yesterday on the very last day of 2015 in the latest edition of the Nepal Journal of Epidemiology. In my defence I didn’t have access to the internet here in Nepal until this afternoon.

The first of the two editorials focuses on small-scale community birth centres in post-earthquake Nepal [1]. The lead author of this editorial our CMMPH PhD student Preeti Mahata and all her co-authors are affiliated with BU. Dr. Pramod Regmi, Dr. Catherine Angell and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen are FHSS staff and Prof. Padam Simkhada and Dr. Brijesh Sathian are both BU Visiting Faculty. Preeti Mahato is conducting her PhD research on birthing centres in Nawalparasi, in the south of Nepal, in an area bordering India.

The second editorial looks at ‘health’ in the recently announced new Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nepal [2]. The concept of health as a human right seems to us quite central in the Nepalese Constitution, considerably more so than in the Constitutions of the USA or the Netherlands, for example. Four of the five authors of this editorial are affiliated with BU, whilst Dr.Puspa Pant is based at the Centre for Child and Adolescent Health, at the University of the West of England.

The Nepal Journal of Epidemiology is Gold Open Access hence both editorials are freely available to everyone.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

References:

Mahato, P.K., Regmi, P.R., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Angell, C., Sathian, B. (2015) Birthing centre infrastructure in Nepal post 2015 earthquake. Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 5(4): 518-519. http://www.nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/article/view/14260/11579
Simkhada, P., Regmi, P.R., Pant, P.R., van Teijlingen, E., Sathian, B. (2015) Stipulating citizens’ fundamental right to healthcare: Inference from the Constitution of Federal Republic of Nepal 2015. Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 5(4); 516-517. http://www.nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/article/view/14257/11576

31 December 2015

THET-funded project in Nepal

international, open access, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

Yesterday Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen met with Nepalese collaborators from Tribhuvan University to discuss the first training session planned for THET project ‘Mental Health Training for Maternity Care Providers in Nepal‘. The target population of the project comprises community-based health-care practitioners at the level of nurse and below (there are no doctors in rural villages). The project is a collaboration between the Department of Health, Physical and Population Education at Nepal’s oldest and largest university, Tribhuvan University’s (TU), and two UK universities, Bournemouth University (BU) and Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), and supported by our local partner, Green Tara Nepal (GTN). BU has a long history of working with GTN as well as its sister organisation Green Tara Trust (GTT), a Buddhist charity based in London. The project is funded from a grant awarded under the Health Partnership Scheme (HPS). HPS put money into health partnerships to carry out training and capacity-building projects in low-income countries, such as Nepal. HPS itself is funded by the UK Department for International Development (DfID) and managed by THET (Tropical Health & Education Trust).

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen is one of the first volunteers together with BU Visiting Faculty Dr. Bibha Simkhada (research nurse at LJMU & practising nurse in the NHS). Together with collaborators in Nepel they will deliver the first training early in 2016 (i.e. next week) on this THET project. The first photo shows Prof. Lokendra Sherchan writing a letter of invitation to the District Public Health Officer in Nawalparasi inviting him to encourage his staff to participate in our training. The letter is beautifully handwritten in Nepali as the university is closed between terms at the moment. The second photo shows professors Shyam K Maharjan, Ram K Maharjan and Edwin van Teijlingen in discussion with Kathmandu in the background. Both photos are taken by GTN’s Samridhi Pradhan. We have published some of the background information on our project earlier this year in the Nepal Journal of Epidemiology [1].

References:

van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Devkota, B., Fanning, P., Ireland, J., Simkhada, B., Sherchan, L., Silwal, R.C., Pradhan, S., Maharjan, S.K., Maharjan, R.K. (2015) Mental health issues in pregnant women in Nepal. Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 5(3): 499-501. http://www.nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/article/view/13607/11007

Category / Health, Wellbeing & Society

SPARCing up the heart in flies…

Editorial by Dr. Way in top journal highlights midwifery education

Systematic Review Masterclass – 15-16 February 2016

Presentation by PhD student Preeti Mahato Jan 27th.

The power of a poster… and public involvement in research

New CMMPH international midwifery publication

Latest BU Nursing publication

Lunchtime Seminar with Dr Rosie Read – “Into the Field: undergraduate students and community-engaged ethnography”

Field visit to birthing centre in rural Nepal

THET-funded project in Nepal

Other services

Don’t miss a post!

Recent posts

Search by Category

Research Information Network

UKRI

Category / Health, Wellbeing & Society

Other services

Don’t miss a post!

Recent posts

Search by Category

Search by popular post topics