Category / Knowledge Exchange

HRV and Traumatic Injury- systematic review protocol published in PloS One by MSPH researcher

Doctoral College, Impact, Knowledge Exchange, open access, PG research, Publishing, student research

Rabeea Maqsood is a first year PhD student within the department of Medical Sciences and Public Health. She is exploring the role of serious battlefield traumatic injury and Heart Rate Variability (HRV) in military veterans and personnel in a collaborative project between BU and the ADVANCE study, UK (For more: https://www.advancestudydmrc.org.uk/)

Recently, as a part of her PhD thesis, Rabeea’s study protocol on traumatic injuries and HRV has been published in PloS One with open access. The article has been downloaded and viewed hundreds of times since its publication. Here’s the link: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0273688

Watch this space for the full systematic review which will address the evidence gap in the field of HRV and combat trauma research.

Report on the British Academy Writing Workshop at UABC Tijuana, Mexico

Awarded & submitted bids, Events, international, Knowledge Exchange, writing

The UK-Mexico Leisure and Tourism Academic Writing Workshop at UABC, Tijuana

After two years of postponing the British Academy-funded ‘UK-Mexico Leisure and Tourism Academic Writing Workshop: Supporting Mexican ECRs in writing for publication’ due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the organisers Dr Paola Vizcaino (Bournemouth University, Department of Sport and Event Management) and Dr Isis Arlene Díaz- Carrión (Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Facultad de Turismo y Mercadotecnia), were able to deliver a successful face-to-face workshop at the UABC campus in Tijuana this summer.

The event took place from 8-12 August 2022 with the aim to support the career development of up to 20 PhD students and early career researchers (ECRs) from Universidad Autónoma de Baja California (UABC) and seven other Mexican universities (Universidad de Guanajuato, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México, Universidad Anáhuac, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro, Colegio de Postgraduados and Universidad Veracruzana).

 

The workshop was designed to provide participants access to the academic requirements of high-ranking leisure and tourism journals in English, and to equip them with the necessary knowledge and skills to publish in these journals.

The brilliant speakers included:

Nancy Gard McGehee, PhD, Professor at Virginia Tech, USA and Co-editor of the Journal of Travel Research, the 2021 top-ranked impact factor journal in the area of tourism;

Donna Chambers, PhD, Professor of Tourism at the University Sunderland, UK and Managing Editor of Leisure Studies and Resource Editor of Annals of Tourism Research;

Jayne Caudwell, PhD, Associate Professor in Social Sciences, Gender and Sexualities at Bournemouth University, UK and former Managing Editor of Leisure Studies;

Xavier Font, PhD, Professor in Sustainable Marketing at the University of Surrey, UK and Co-editor of the Journal of Sustainable Tourism;

Philipp Wassler, PhD, Assistant Professor at the University of Bergamo, Italy and reviewer for a number of high-ranking tourism journals.

The workshop offered networking sessions to allow participants to discuss their research interests and start conversations about potential research collaborations, as well as personalised mentoring with journal editors and established academics in the fields of leisure and tourism management.

Finally, participants also learned about the British Academy’s international funding schemes and were particularly interested in the Newton International Fellowships and Visiting Fellowships, which can facilitate collaborative research projects between academics based overseas  (i.e. Mexico) and UK higher education institutions.

Please find below some of the workshop highlights.

Welcome

Dr Marisa Reyes-Orta, Research and Postgraduate Coordinator at the Facultad de Turismo y Mercadotecnia, welcomed speakers and participants to the UABC, Tijuana on behalf of the faculty’s Director, Dr Martha Ofelia Lobo Rodríguez.

Dr Reyes-Orta highlighted the importance of the British Academy-funded workshop to build collaboration networks between Mexico and the United Kingdom, to develop the competitiveness of the academic outputs written by Mexican PhD students and ECRs and to contribute to the internationalisation of the UABC’s postgraduate programmes, particularly the recently validated PhD in Tourism.

Welcome to the workshop. Left to right: MC, Jesús Amparo López Vizcarra (UABC), Dr Paola Vizcaino (BU), Dr Isis Díaz-Carrión (UABC) and Dr Marisa Reyes-Orta (Research and Postgraduate Coordinator at UABC, Tijuana)

 

Academic Writing Tips from Journal Editors

After a brief introduction to the workshop and an ice-breaker activity led by Dr Paola Vizcaino (BU) and Dr Isis Arlene Díaz-Carrión (UABC, Tijuana), the journal editors presented the publication requirements of top-ranking leisure and tourism journals and shared insightful writing tips with participants.

Key note by Prof Nancy McGehee

Professor Nancy Gard McGehee (Virginia Tech, USA, Co-editor of the Journal of Travel Research, JTR) highlighted the need for PhD students and ECRs to develop a solid research plan by: a) studying the literature to look for gaps, b) examining the tourism industry and current environment to look for problems that need solutions, c) finding the best theory (or theories) to solve the problem, and d) letting the problem direct the method.

She also recommended assessing tourism journals to find the right match for participants’ research and the importance of translating local research to a global audience in the case of international journals. Furthermore, she emphasised how top-ranked impact factor journals only consider manuscripts for publication when they demonstrate substantive and leading edge research, a sound methodology and a strong theoretical foundation / contribution.

 

Presentation by Prof Donna Chambers

Professor Donna Chambers (University of Sunderland, UK, Managing Editor of Leisure Studies) explained the type of papers that are welcome by Leisure Studies, including papers that examine the inter-relationships between leisure and work, civic engagement, health and wellbeing, major
resources of social inequality and forms of social (in)justice.

As Prof Chambers was aware that most of the workshop participants had a focus on tourism management and some are developing projects on natural and cultural heritage, she mentioned that research that addresses tourism as a leisure activity or examines the leisure aspects of events and festivals are also a good fit for the journal. Finally, she expressed that Leisure Studies seeks to develop culturally diverse and nuanced understandings of leisure and that research which examines leisure in the Global South is welcomed alongside studies of leisure in the Global North.

 

Presentation by Associate Prof Jayne Caudwell

Associate Professor Jayne Caudwell (BU) shared some practical tips for PhD students and ECRs to enhance their research and written outputs. She highlighted the need for strong theoretical underpinning, sound methodology and critical analysis of findings (demonstrating rigor in every section), a clear structure to the paper, logical and coherent (to meet scholarship requirements), and to explain the original aspects of the research or demonstrate an original contribution to the body of knowledge (originality).

 

Professor Xavier Font

Professor Xavier Font (University of Surrey, UK, Co-editor of the Journal of Sustainable Tourism), joined remotely from the UK to deliver an online presentation in Spanish to ensure maximum rapport with participants. He recognised that less than 1% of the submissions to the Journal of Sustainable Tourism come from academics ascribed to Latin American universities or research centres and offered sound advice on how to overcome the language barriers to publish in English-speaking journals, as well as to develop a work plan to publish in top-ranked impact factor journals.

He also emphasised the need for ECRs to specialise in an area of leisure or tourism research, whilst building collaborative networks to gain access to the theoretical and methodological expertise of more senior colleagues to develop stronger research proposals and outputs.

 

Presentation by Dr Philipp Wassler

To close the first two days of guest speaker presentations, Dr Philipp Wassler (University of Bergamo, Italy) shared his perspective as a journal reviewer, and provided practical examples on how to structure a strong research article before submitting to a top-ranked impact factor journal. He highlighted the need to write a sharp abstract and introduction section to capture the readers’ interest; a strong literature review that demonstrates a thorough understanding of the theories that have been employed to examine the problem; a detailed methodology section with clear justification of choices; and a findings / discussion section that tackle the research questions / objectives.

The second part of the report will follow suit on a separate blog post to summarise the creation of the UK-Mexico Leisure and Tourism Academic Network and the initial collaborations that are stemming from the workshop.

 

 

 

New cross faculty HEIF project underway: exploring the narratives of childbirth

BU research, HEIF, Knowledge Exchange, Research news

A social marketing perspective on current narratives of childbirth choices and their influence on women’s views and maternity service use.

 

This cross-faculty HEIF-funded project aims to explore the current narratives of home birth choices found in social media and provide understanding of how knowledge exchange could influence them.

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines in the U.K recommend that pregnant women are offered choices regarding birth settings. This might be home, free-standing midwifery unit, alongside midwifery unit or an obstetric unit.  However, there is evidence that many women are only familiar with the obstetric unit as a birthing option. In the recent national survey only 47% of women had enough information to help them decide where to have their baby and 20% of women were not offered any choices. Although home birth has been described as positive and fulfilling, women are offered limited choices for a home birth.

Our study focuses on societal knowledge regarding place of birth. It is suggested that the negative portrayal and absence of other birth settings options apart from obstetric units in  the media and in society has framed childbirth as medical and has offered women limited choices Current research shows that pregnant women are increasingly relying on the media especially social media for pregnancy information needs and to find connections. Therefore, it is important to explore current social media content surrounding home birth narratives to understand what information is presented and to begin to explore the influence of these narratives on women’s decision making. The findings can subsequently be used to inform social marketing strategies to promote positive narratives surrounding homebirth.

This mixed method study will explore home birth narratives in social media and its influence on women’s decision-making using social media data scraping and qualitative interviews. The team will use PPI (patient and public involvement) to shape the development of the research tools and ensure stakeholders are actively involved throughout the project.

 

The research team:

Dr Julia Hibbert (BUBS), Assoc. Professor Chris Chapleo (BUBS), Aniebiet Ekong (HSS), Professor Vanora Hundley (HSS), Professor Edwin van Teijlingen (HSS), Assoc. Professor Ann Luce (FMC) and Anna Marsh (HSS) partnering with service users and women’s groups.

 

Some useful references:

Coxon, K., Chisholm, A., Malouf, R., Rowe, R. and Hollowell, J., 2017. What influences birth place preferences, choices and decision-making amongst healthy women with straightforward pregnancies in the UK? A qualitative evidence synthesis using a ‘best fit’framework approach. BMC pregnancy and childbirth, 17 (1), 1-15.

Coxon, K., Sandall, J. and Fulop, N. J., 2014. To what extent are women free to choose where to give birth? How discourses of risk, blame and responsibility influence birth place decisions. Health, risk & society, 16 (1), 51-67.

Fletcher, B. R., Rowe, R., Hollowell, J., Scanlon, M., Hinton, L. and Rivero-Arias, O., 2019. Exploring women’s preferences for birth settings in England: A discrete choice experiment. Plos one, 14 (4), e0215098.

Naylor Smith, J., Taylor, B., Shaw, K., Hewison, A. and Kenyon, S., 2018. ‘I didn’t think you were allowed that, they didn’t mention that.’A qualitative study exploring women’s perceptions of home birth. BMC pregnancy and childbirth, 18 (1), 1-11.

NICE, N. I. f. H. a. C. E., 2017. Intrapartum care United Kingdom

Sperlich, M. and Gabriel, C., 2022. “I got to catch my own baby”: a qualitative study of out of hospital birth. Reproductive Health, 19 (1), 1-13.

Vickery, M., van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V., Smith, G. B., Way, S. and Westwood, G., 2020. Midwives’ views towards women using mHealth and eHealth to self-monitor their pregnancy: A systematic review of the literature. European journal of midwifery, 4.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Turing Scheme experience in Nepal

BU research, international, Knowledge Exchange, PG research, Research news, Research Training, Student Engagement, Uncategorized

My name is Sulochana Dhakal-Rai. I am a final-year PhD student at Faculty of Health and Social Sciences (FHSS). My PhD research is related to factors affecting the rising rate of CS in urban hospitals in Nepal. There are several reasons to choose BU to do PhD study. Firstly,  this university offers strong professional orientation with focus on academic excellence and employability to multinational students from multicultural background. Secondly, it provides opportunities to students for undertaking  different activities, for example – international student exchange programme. I am always keen to be involved in such types of activities for my personal and professional development.

I applied for Turing Scheme Fund to do research activities in Nepal. The application process was very easy. I had received positive support from my supervisors and team of international grants. I was delighted to participate in international mobility, because I had a chance not only  sharing my research experience to student and teachers at Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (MMIHS), Kathmandu, but also to do my own research activities (secondary data verification and analysis).

Although, it was hot weather, polluted and over-crowded  in Kathmandu, I enjoyed eating Nepali cuisine, meeting own people and speaking Nepali language. For me, there was not any problem in local language and culture. However, it was uncomfortable using public transport at times. I had suffered from of an episode of indigestion problem as well.

I loved meeting students and teachers of MMIHS. During my stay in MMIHS, I had the opportunity to share experience about my research study, using mixed methods in research study and my experience working as a foreign nurse in UK to relevant teachers and students. They were really good and inspiring people. I always received respect and support from them while I was there.

After this international activity, I have learnt how to work with people from different organisation and different place. I have developed my confidence in employability and career skills. I would like to express my thanks to Bournemouth University for providing me such a golden opportunity. I strongly recommend to other student at Bournemouth University to participate these kinds of international mobility programmes.

Sulochana Dhakal-Rai.