Today we received a copy of the book Appreciating Health and Care in the post. This book has a sub-title ‘A practical appreciative inquiry resource for the health and social care sector’ and refers to the work led by Bournemouth University’s Dr. Rachel Arnold. Appreciative Inquiry values people’s expertise and vision and can motivate people to see the world differently and instigate positive change. Rachel been the lead author on several publications around Appreciative Inquiry [1-3].
Drs. Pramod Regmi and Nirmal Aryal in the Department of Nursing Sciences published a new paper with colleagues from Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines in PLoS ONE under the title ‘Assessing the basic knowledge and awareness of dengue fever prevention among migrant workers in Klang Valley, Malaysia’. [1] Globally, 390 million dengue virus infections occur per year. In Malaysia, migrant workers are particularly vulnerable to Dengue Fever (DF) due to mosquito breeding sites exposure and poor health literacy. This study reports on assessing the current Dengue Fever knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP). The paper identifies strategies to promote awareness around Dengue Fever among migrant workers in Malaysia. Most respondents were male, working in the services industry, had completed high school, aged between 30–39 years and with less than ten years work experience in Malaysia. Overall, respondents’ knowledge was positively correlated with attitude but negatively with practices. Older respondents, who had completed higher education, obtained higher knowledge scores. Similarly, those with working experience of >20 years in Malaysia obtained higher attitude scores. Respondents with a previous history of Dengue Fever strongly considered the removal of mosquito breeding sites as their own responsibility, hence tended to frequently apply preventive measures. Respondents’ knowledge was also positively correlated to their understanding of Dengue Fever information sourced from social media platforms.
Congratulations!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Reference:
Chaudhary MN, Lim V-C, Faller EM, Regmi P, Aryal N, Mohd Zain SN, Azman AS, Sahimin B. (2024) Assessing the basic knowledge and awareness of dengue fever prevention among migrant workers in Klang Valley, Malaysia. PLoS ONE 19(2): e0297527. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0297527
You are invited to a Zoom meeting of the PRME UKI (Principles of Responsible Management Education, UK and Ireland) Interest Group on Employability, Sustainability and Jobs of the Future (co-led by Dr Jonathan Louw MCIPD SFHEA and Dr Karen Cripps) that will take place on 13th March from 2.30pm – 4.00pm. This will host Arti Kumar MBE as a keynote presenter to celebrate the close of the ‘Career Story Telling for the Sustainable Development Goals’ workshops.
Arti’s keynote speech will unravel the key features of SOARing to Success as a principled, inclusive and interconnected approach. She will show how staff can animate the four dimensions of SOAR as a process of personalised learning that enables all students to constructively align their aspirations and employability development with sustainable development goals.
The SOAR framework was used to structure the ‘Career Story Telling for the Sustainable Development Goals’workshop that was delivered at over 20 universities as part of PRME seed funding for pedagogic innovations 2023 (by Karen Cripps, Cathy d’Abreu and Dr Milena Bobeva).
The session will include insights from collaborating colleagues and students, share the resources developed through the project, and host an open discussion on approaches to embedding ’employability for sustainability’ within the curriculum. You can read more about the project and collaborators in the link below and the zoom registration link here.
To register in advance for this meeting click here.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
All Sustainability-oriented student organisations associated with PRME Signatory Members from the PRME Chapter UK & Ireland are encouraged to apply! Submissions should be completed through a SUBMISSION FORM (deadline: 31st March 2024 at 23:59 ET) to be filled by a student organisation representative, who must be a student formally enrolled with a PRME Signatory Member during the 2023 calendar year.
Applicants can find all the information about the Awards structure, submission criteria and requirements by accessing the CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS – TERMS OF REFERENCE. There, you will see that the PGS Sustainability Awards are divided into two phases: Regional Awards (February to May) and Global Awards (May to June).
Due to a partnership with Marketplace Simulations, on the 18th June 2024, PRME will celebrate the Regional Winners and award the Global Winner during the 2024 PRME Global Forum. On occasion, the student organisation awarded as the Global Winner will receive a USD $2,000 monetary prize to increase the impact of their local initiatives! The PGS Team will host two informational webinars to present the 2024 PGS Sustainability Awards and answer any questions regarding the application processes. Please find below the registration links to these informational sessions:
Informational Webinar 1 – 8th March, 12.00 to 13.00 CET (register here)
Informational Webinar 2 – 18th March, 17.00 to 18.00 CET (register here)
PRME UK and Ireland Conference and Doctoral Colloquium 2024
The Calls for Proposals are open for the PRME UK and Ireland Conference and Doctoral Colloquium 2024 ‘Educating for Deep Transformation: Business Schools’ contribution to a Greener, Healthier, Fairer Society’ to be held at the University of Exeter 19th-21st June 2024.
Additional information can be found in the link below.
2024 PRME Faculty Teaching Awards: Applications are Open
The PRME Faculty Teaching Awards recognize excellence in teaching sustainable development and responsible management practices in business education. They seek to honour innovative and impactful pedagogical contributions that advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and align with the pedagogical interests of the PRME community.
Eligibility: Faculty at PRME Signatory institutions from all levels and disciplines. Applications can be submitted from individuals or as a team application of no more than six.
Submissions close: 31st March 2024. For more details click here.
The Month in Research is our monthly round-up sharing research and knowledge exchange successes from across the previous month, showcasing the amazing work taking place across BU.
Your achievements
Thank you to everyone who has used the online form to put forward their achievements, or those of colleagues, this month.
Dr Luciana Esteves (Faculty of Science and Technology) is part of a team of coastal scientists, artists and educators who worked on the writing/production of Coasts for Kids, a series of videos narrated by 6-8 year old children about coastal processes. Coasts for Kids won 1st place at the Climate Creatives Challenge #04 (Coastal Change), which received submissions from 56 countries. A video about the challenge and the winning entries can be found here: https://youtu.be/7fWiRj8pq48
Funding
Congratulations to all those who have had funding for research and knowledge exchange projects and activities awarded in January. Highlights include:
Professor Janice Denegri-Knott (Faculty of Media and Communication) has been awarded c.£200,000 by Horizon Europe: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions for their project Mapping the full scope of consumer engagement on social media
Dr Richard Wallis (Faculty of Media and Communication) has been awarded c.£111,000 by the British Academy for their project Supportive offboarding: Developing new practices to support sustainable freelance careers in TV
Dr Anna Metzger (Faculty of Science and Technology) has been awarded c.£70,000 by the Royal Society for their project Perception of objects’ 3D shape – from active sensing to multisensory representations
Dr Simant Prakoonwit (Faculty of Science and Technology) has been awarded c.£35,000 by Innovate UK for their project Artificial Intelligence Content Moderation project
Publications
Congratulations to all those who have had work published across the last month. Below is a selection of publications from throughout February:
Content for The Month in Research has been collected using the research and knowledge exchange database (RED), the Bournemouth University Research Online (BURO) repository and submissions via The Month in Research online form. It is by no means intended to be an exhaustive list. All information is correct as of 28.2.24.
Please use The Month in Research online form to share your highlights and achievements, or those of colleagues, for the next monthly round-up.
Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) February 2024 Open Call
HEIF funding is now available for innovative Knowledge Exchange projects.
Research England provide universities with funding for knowledge exchange (Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF)) to enable them to support and develop a broad range of knowledge-based interactions and work with business, public and third sector organisations, community bodies and the wider public, to exchange knowledge and increase the economic and societal benefit from their work.
The primary purpose of the funding is to support a small number of projects which can include:
significant projects that are underway and require a further injection of funds;
existing knowledge exchange projects to develop these ideas to the next stage of development;
projects with ambition that require a seed funding, capacity building, proof-of-concept or launchpad (please note that follow-up funding to support further development of your successfully funded HEIF-projects will be available to apply for in the 2024-25 academic cycle; we encourage applications for this call as an opportunity to kick-start your work).
The HEIF FEBRUARY 2024 OPEN CALL fund supports the ambition of the UK Government’s Plan for Growth to support and incentivise creative ideas and technologies that will shape the UK’s future. Further developing BU’s work in this area will also enable us to support UKRI’s aims to support cooperation and collaboration, as well as developing our academic talent. The aim is to provide a platform for academics to take their knowledge exchange ideas to the next stage of development or to completion.
If you would like to discuss your application or your project’s eligibility, there will be a drop in session on Thursday 29th between 1pm – 2.30pm in the Reception Area of Dorset House (BUBS). Or you can contact Dr Wendelin Morrison, the Knowledge Exchange Manager by email wsmorrison@bournemouth.ac.uk
Key details
Amount: This year, £50000 of BU’s HEIF grant will be allocated through this open call, to support up to 6 knowledge exchange and innovation projects.
Timeframe: Projects should span a maximum of 4 months. The funds awarded must be spent by 31 July 2024.
Closing date: Friday, 8 March 2024
The link to the Guidance and Application form is below – please ensure you DOWNLOAD a copy to your own computer and do not edit directly on the SharePoint: HEIF February 2024 Open Call.docx
There are growing calls for young people under the age of 16 to be banned from having smartphones or access to social media. The Smartphone Free Childhood WhatsApp group aims to normalise young people not having smartphones until “at least” 14 years old. Esther Ghey, mother of the murdered teenager Brianna Ghey, is campaigning for a ban on social media apps for under-16s.
The concerns centre on the sort of content that young people can access (which can be harmful and illegal) and how interactions on these devices could lead to upsetting experiences.
However, as an expert in young people’s use of digital media, I am not convinced that bans at an arbitrary age will make young people safer or happier – or that they are supported by evidence around young people’s use of digital technology.
In general, most young people have a positive relationship with digital technology. I worked with South West Grid for Learning, a charity specialising in education around online harm, to produce a report in 2018 based upon a survey of over 8,000 young people. The results showed that just over two thirds of the respondents had never experienced anything upsetting online.
Large-scale research on the relationship between social media and emotional wellbeing concluded there is little evidence that social media leads to psychological harm.
Sadly, there are times when young people do experience upsetting digital content or harm as a result of interactions online. However, they may also experience upsetting or harmful experiences on the football pitch, at a birthday party or playing Pokémon card games with their peers.
It would be more unusual (although not entirely unheard of) for adults to be making calls to ban children from activities like these. Instead, our default position is “if you are upset by something that has happened, talk to an adult”. Yet when it comes to digital technology, there seems to be a constant return to calls for bans.
We know from attempts at prevention of other areas of social harms, such as underage sex or access to drugs or alcohol, that bans do not eliminate these behaviours. However, we do know that bans will mean young people will not trust adults’ reactions if they are upset by something and want to seek help.
I recall delivering an assembly to a group of year six children (aged ten and 11) one Safer Internet Day a few years ago. A boy in the audience told me he had a YouTube channel where he shared video game walkthroughs with his friends.
I asked if he’d ever received nasty comments on his platform and if he’d talked to any staff about it at his school. He said he had, but he would never tell a teacher because “they’ll tell me off for having a YouTube channel”.
This was confirmed after the assembly by the headteacher, who said they told young people not to do things on YouTube because it was dangerous. I suggested that empowering what was generally a positive experience might result in the young man being more confident to talk about negative comments – but was met with confusion and repetition of “they shouldn’t be on there”.
Need for trust
Young people tell us that two particularly important things they need in tackling upsetting experiences online are effective education and adults they can trust to talk to and be confident of receiving support from. A 15 year old experiencing abuse as a result of social media interactions would likely not be confident to disclose if they knew the first response would be, “You shouldn’t be on there, it’s your own fault.”
There is sufficient research to suggest that banning under-16s having mobile phones and using social media would not be successful. Research into widespread youth access to pornography from the Children’s Commissioner for England, for instance, illustrates the failures of years of attempts to stop children accessing this content, despite the legal age to view pornography being 18.
The prevalence of hand-me-down phones and the second hand market makes it extremely difficult to be confident that every mobile phone contract accurately reflects the age of the user. It is a significant enough challenge for retailers selling alcohol to verify age face to face.
The Online Safety Act is bringing in online age verification systems for access to adult content. But it would seem, from the guidance by communications regulator Ofcom, that the goal is to show that platforms have demonstrated a duty of care, rather than being a perfect solution. And we know that age assurance (using algorithms to estimate someone’s age) is less accurate for under-13s than older ages.
By putting up barriers and bans, we erode trust between those who could be harmed and those who can help them. While these suggestions come with the best of intentions, sadly they are doomed to fail. What we should be calling for is better understanding from adults, and better education for young people instead.
Yesterday we received the proofs of the recently accepted paper ‘Improved Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Facilities at School and their Effect on Educational Achievement in Basic Level Students in Nepal’ [1]. Luckily these are only the proof pages as my family name is misspelt, and the paper still lists the old name of our Centre for Midwifery and Women’s Health, which was, of course, the correct name at the time of submission.
The last time I published a paper on hygiene was also with colleagues in Nepal seven years ago, this time it was on menstrual hygiene [2].
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health
References:
Sharma, M., Adhikari, R., van Teijlingen, E., Devkota, B., Khanal, S. (2024) Improved Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Facilities at School and their Effect on Educational Achievement in Basic Level Students in Nepal, International Journal of Health Promotion & Education (accepted). https://doi.org/10.1080/14635240.2024.2314459.
Budhathoki, S.S., Bhattachan, M., Pokharel, P.K., Bhadra, M., van Teijlingen, E. (2017) Reusable sanitary towels: Promoting menstrual hygiene in post-earthquake Nepal. Journal of Family Planning & Reproductive Health Care43(2): 157-159.
Congratulations to Mr. Musa Lewis Nhlabatsi whose paper ‘Clinicians’ barriers to screening and diagnosing diabetes distress in patients with type 1 and 2 Diabetes Mellitus: a systematic review’ has just been accepted by the African Journal of Health Sciences[1].This systematic review’s initial search identified 1,579 studies, but only four primary studies from three countries met the inclusion criteria. The studies reported five barriers: (1) lack of knowledge, (2) lack of time, (3) lack of accessibility to mental health services, (4) lack of motivation and (5) patients’ denial of their diabetes distress. The two most reported barriers were lack of knowledge and time. In conclusion this review identifies critical barriers to the underdiagnosis of diabetes distress by clinicians and highlights the need for policymakers and organisations to conduct pragmatic research to understand clinicians’ experiences in assessing diabetes distress in various healthcare settings to improve diabetes management.
Nhlabatsi, M.L., van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V. (2024) Clinicians’ barriers to screening and diagnosing diabetes distress in patients with type 1 and 2 Diabetes Mellitus: a systematic review’, African Journal of Health Sciences (forthcoming)
The Month in Research is our monthly round-up sharing research and knowledge exchange successes from across the previous month, showcasing the amazing work taking place across BU.
Your achievements
Thank you to everyone who has used the online form to put forward their achievements, or those of colleagues, this month.
With an international team of researchers from Manchester Metropolitan University, the University of Illinois, and Juntendo University, Dr Daniel Lock (Business School) co-authored a new study in Social Science and Medicine. The research demonstrated that the well-being benefits of physical activity were activated when the activity was internalised as a meaningful feature of participants self-concept. Shared by Dr Daniel Lock on behalf of Dr Yuhei Inoue, Dr Daniel Lock, and Dr Miki Satoro
Fred McClintock (Faculty of Health and Social Sciences) has completed the first publication of his PhD: Assessing the Impact of Sensor Orientation on Accelerometer-Derived Angles: A Systematic Analysis and Proposed Error Reduction.
Funding
Congratulations to all those who have had funding for research and knowledge exchange projects and activities awarded in January. Highlights include:
Dr Szilvia Ruszev (Faculty of Media and Communication) has been awarded c.£172,000 by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for their project Shared Post-Human Imagination: Human-AI Collaboration in Media Creation
Professor Marcin Budka (Faculty of Science and Technology) has been awarded c.£225,000 by Innovate UK for their KTP (Virtual): This is Crowd Ltd – Generative AI driven marketing campaign customisation tool
Professor Marios Angelopoulos (Faculty of Science and Technology) has been awarded c.£28,000 by Ofgem for their project Affordable carbon monoxide and heat verbal warning alarm
Publications
Congratulations to all those who have had work published across the last month. Below is a selection of publications from throughout January:
Content for The Month in Research has been collected using the research and knowledge exchange database (RED), the Bournemouth University Research Online (BURO) repository, and submissions via The Month in Research online form. It is by no means intended to be an exhaustive list. All information is correct as of 30.1.24.
Please use The Month in Research online form to share your highlights and achievements, or those of colleagues, for the next monthly round-up.
New paper on migrant workers from Nepal was published this week in KMC Journal. The paper ‘Risk Perception and Protective Health Measure Regarding COVID-19 among Nepali Labour Migrants’ Returnee from India’ has Shanti Khanal as lead author [1]. The journal is Open Access, hence freely available online across the globe. The paper examines the association between risk perception and protective behaviour regarding COVID-19 in returnee migrant workers. A total of 384 returnee migrants, based in a quarantine centre on return from India, participated in the study. Using the health belief model (HBM) as a theoretical framework, a structured interview questionnaire was designed and administered. A further three health workers were interviewed face-to-face.
The study showed that the perceived risk of COVID-19 among participants was medium to low. Participants perceived few barriers and had low self-efficacy levels compared to other constructs. This study further showed that participants were more likely to follow a range of protective health behaviours, but not found all. The study revealed a significant association between all risk perception constructs and protective behaviours (p=< 0.05). This study accordingly highlighted a significant relationship between the respondents’ risk perception level and protective health behaviours. The study envisaged that public awareness of risk to the people who returned from India is essential to increase risk perception during the outbreak.
The study works towards fulfilling SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals), especially ‘Good health and well-being’ (SDG 3) and Decent work and economic growth (SDG 8).
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH)
Reference:
Khanal, S.P., van Teijlingen, E., Sharma, M., Acharya, J., Sharma, C., Kharel, S., Gaulee, U., Bhattarai, K., Pasa, R.B., Bohora, P. (2024) Risk Perception and Protective Health Measure Regarding COVID-19 among Nepali Labour Migrants’ Returnee from India. KMC Journal, 6(1): 313–330. https://doi.org/10.3126/kmcj.v6i1.62364
Our article ‘Understanding health education, health promotion & public health’ [1] is getting read according to ResearchGate. This conceptual/ theoretical paper was published open access in late 2021 in the Journal of Health Promotion and it reached 4,500 reads yesterday. Whilst the web side of the journal suggests today that the PDF of the paper has been downloaded 8,511 times.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH)
Reference:
van Teijlingen, K. R., Devkota, B., Douglas, F., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E. R. (2021). Understanding health education, health promotion and public health. Journal of Health Promotion, 9(1): 1–7. https://doi.org/10.3126/jhp.v9i01.40957
On my latest trip to Nepal I noticed a number of related newspaper stories about those wanting to migrate abroad for work. Yesterday there was an article with the headline ‘Three held for defrauding unemployed youths’ (The Himalayan Times, January 11, page 2), which could be seen as story about crime, just like the one next to it on the same page with was headed ‘Vehicle stolen’ (The Himalayan Times, January 11, page 2) . Both fit under the category of people suffering from crime committed by naughty people. However, having studied labour migration as a sociologist for over a decade it also speaks of the desperation of young people to leave Nepal. In that sense, the ‘Three held for defrauding unemployed youths’ story, is more like the story the day before ‘Family of Nepali who joined Russian Army worried after hearing about his death’ (The Himalayan Times, January 10, page 1).
In the latter story of a tragic death of a Nepalese mercenary, the most unexpected element I found was that Nepalese victim had paid Rs. 500,000 to criminals, who acted as brokers. I would have expected that Putin’s agents operating in the Middle East were paying large amounts of money to potential army recruits to fight in the invasion of Ukraine. To my great surprise, the payment was the other way round, where Nepalese migrant workers are desperate enough to pay the country at war. When people are desperate to work abroad unscrupulous brokers see opportunities to make money.
Whilst at the end of December 2023 two Nepalese men were killed when Korean language test candidates were staging demonstrations in Kathmandu demanding that they be allowed to appear for language tests for jobs in the manufacturing sector in South Korea. When the Minister for Physical Infrastructure and Transport stopped to intervene, he sparked a riot and his car was set on fire. The police opened fire and killed two protesters in a very un-Nepalese way of dealing with protest. Again to me the underlying issue to note is how desperate these men are to go abroad and get to work in South Korea.
One print daily English-language newspaper The Annapurna Express and one online newspaper Gazzabkoo Magazine published articles this week on our project on strengthening the health system in Nepal. The latter used the title ‘Strengthening Health Systems for Better Health‘ and the former opted for the headline ‘Forum on health system strengthening’.
Our interdisciplinary study ‘The impact of federalisation on Nepal’s health system: a longitudinal analysis’ is funded by the UK Health Systems Research Initiative [Grant ref. MR/T023554/1]. In this Nepal Federal Health System Project we study the consequences for the health system of Nepal’s move in 2015 from a centralised political system to a more federal structure of government . This joint project is led by the University of Sheffield in collaboration with Bournemouth University, the University of Huddersfield, Canterbury Christ Church University and two institutions in Nepal, namely MMIHS (Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences) and PHASE Nepal.
The sixth paper from our interdisciplinary research team focuses on the effective way we applied participatory policy analysis in a study on the effects on the health system in Nepal. In the research we used a methodological approach using the River of Life which we describe in this paper ‘Participatory policy analysis in health policy and systems research: reflections from a study in Nepal’ [1]. The Lead author is Dr. Sujata Sapkota from Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (MMIHS) in Kathmandu.
This study was funded by the UK Health Systems Research Initiative [Grant ref. MR/T023554/1]. In this larger Nepal Federal Health System Project we study the consequences for the health system of Nepal’s move from a centralised political system to a more federal government structure in 2015. This joint project is led by the University of Sheffield in collaboration with Bournemouth University, the University of Huddersfield, Canter Bury Christ Church University and two institutions in Nepal, namely MMIHS and PHASE Nepal. We have managed to publish five papers from this project prior to today’s one reflecting on the methodology [2-6].
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMWH (Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health)
References:
Sapkota, S., Rushton, S., van Teijlingen, E., Subedi, M., Balen, J., Gautam, S., Adhikary, P., Simkhada, P., Wasti, S.P., Karki, J.K., Panday, S., Karki, A., Rijal, B., Joshi, S., Basnet, S., Marahatta, S.B. (2024) Participatory policy analysis in health policy and systems research: reflections from a study in Nepal. Health Research & Policy Systems, 22 (No.7) https://doi.org/10.1186/s12961-023-01092-5 .
Wasti, S.P., van Teijlingen, E., Rushton, S., et al. (2023) Overcoming the Challenges Facing Nepal’s Health System During Federalisation: An Analysis of Health System Building Blocks, Health Research Policy & Systems21(117) https://doi.org/10.1186/s12961-023-01033-2
Sapkota, S., Dhakal, A., Rushton S., et al. (2023) The impact of decentralisation on health systems: a systematic review of reviews. BMJ Global Health 8:e013317. doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2023-013317.
Sapkota, S., Panday, S., Wasti, S.P., et al. (2022) Health System Strengthening: The Role of Public Health in Federal Nepal, Journal of the Nepal Public Health Association 7(1):36-42.
Adhikary, P., Balen, J., Gautam, S., et al. (2020) The COVID-19 pandemic in Nepal: Emerging evidence on the effectiveness of action by, and cooperation between, different levels of government in a federal system, Journal of Karnali Academy of Health Sciences 3 (3): 1-11.
Rushton, S., Pandey, S., van Teijlingen, E., et al. (2021) An Investigation into the Impact of Decentralization on the Health System of Nepal. Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences, 7(1): 3–14. https://doi.org/10.3126/jmmihs.v7i1.43146
This afternoon Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen attended a partnership meeting with colleagues from Nepal’s Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (MMIHS) in Yak & Yeti Hotel in Kathmandu. The discussion highlighted the longstanding partnership and collaboration between MMIHS and BU. The meeting was part of a wider collaboration around between MMIHS, BU and the University of Huddersfield, The University of Sheffield and Canterbury Christ Church University. The latter universities have been working together for over fours years in an interdisciplinary study ‘The impact of federalisation on Nepal’s health system: a longitudinal analysis’. This project has been funded by the Health System Research Initiative, a UK collaboration between three funding bodies: the MRC (Medical Research Council), the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, and the Welcome Trust.
The BU-MMIHS collaboration has included successful ERASMUS+ staff and student exchanges as well as student exchanges from BU to Kathmandu as part of the Turing Scheme. Currently various BU academics are also involved a co-supervisors on MSc projects conducted by MMIHS postgraduate students.
On the last day of 2023 the Journal of Health Promotion published the paper ‘Sexual Harassment Among Nepali Non-Migrating Female Partners of International Labor Migrant Men’ [1]. This paper, in an Open Access journal, addresses one of the consequences of male labour migrants leaving their family members behind in Nepal. While non-migrating spouses often receive financial support in the form of remittances, their husbands’ migration also creates numerous social and personal problems. This qualitative study explored non-migrating spouses’ experience of sexual harassment/abuse and its impact on their mental health. Fourteen in-depth interviews were conducted and women reported experiencing harassment by men they knew, including their teachers and colleagues, who knew their husbands were abroad. But none of the women reported taking any action against their perpetrators, indicating a lack of power in this study population in still predominantly patriarchal society.
The lead author of the paper is Assistant Prof. Kalpana Gyawali from Tribhuvan University, Nepal’s largest and oldest university paper. Her co-authors are: Padam Simkhada, Visiting Professor in BU’s Faculty of Health & Social Sciences as well as Professor in Global Health at the University of Huddersfield, Edwin van Teijlingen in Bournemouth University’s Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health, Ms. Shraddha Manandhar, PhD. student at the University of Huddersfield, and Mr. Ram Chandra Silwal the Country Director of Green Tara Nepal, the charity we have been working with for nearly twenty years.
References:
Gyawali, K., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E.R., Manandhar, S., Silwal, R.C. (2023). Sexual Harassment Among Nepali Non-Migrating Female Partners of International Labor Migrant Men. Journal of Health Promotion,11(1): 22–31. https://www.nepjol.info/index.php/jhp/article/view/61198
One of the first message I received this morning was that our editorial ‘Addressing the inequalities in global genetic studies for the advancement of Genetic Epidemiology’ [1] had been published yesterday. If I had know this in time it would have been the proper last Bournemouth University Research Blog of 2023 published yesterday. Interestingly, we only submitted the draft editorial on Christmas Day, got it back for revisions on Boxing Day and resubmitted it and had it accepted on December 28th. It dis, of course, help that both editors-in-chief of the Nepal Journal of Epidemiology are co-authors on this editorial!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH)
Reference:
Sathian, B., van Teijlingen, E., Roy., B., Kabir, R., Banerjee, I., Simkhada, P., Al Hamad, H. (2023) Addressing the
inequalities in global genetic studies for the advancement of Genetic Epidemiology. Nepal Journal of Epidemiology,13(4):1292-1293.
DOI: 10.3126/nje.v13i4.61271
Discovering equations, laws, or invariant principles underpins scientific and technical advancement. Robust model discovery has typically emerged from observing the world and, when possible, performing interventions to falsify models.
Recently, data-driven approaches like classic and deep machine learning are evolving traditional equation discovery methods. These new tools can provide unprecedented advances in computer science, neuroscience, physics, philosophy, and many applied areas.
We have just published a new study discussing concepts and methods on causal and equation discovery, outlining current challenges and promising future lines of research. The work also showcases comprehensive case studies in diverse scientific areas ranging from earth and environmental science to neuroscience.
Our tenet is that discovering fundamental laws and causal relations by observing natural phenomena is revolutionised with the coalescence of observational data and simulations, modern machine learning algorithms and domain knowledge. Exciting times are ahead with many challenges and opportunities to improve our understanding of complex systems.
This study is a collaborative work between eight universities in Europe and the United States (Valencia, Berlin, Tübingen, Jena, Stockholm, New York, and Bournemouth Universities).
Camps-Valls, G., Gerhardus, A., Ninad, U., Varando, G., Martius, G., Balaguer-Ballester, E., Vinuesa, R., Diaz, E., Zanna, L. and Runge, J., 2023. Discovering causal relations and equations from data.Physics Reports, 1044, 1-68 (Impact Factor=30).
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