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Congratulations to Dr. Alison Taylor

BU research, Featured academics, PG research, Publishing, Research news, student research, Uncategorized, writing

Congratulations to Dr. Alison Taylor whose PhD paper ‘The therapeutic role of video diaries: A qualitative study involving breastfeeding mothers‘ has just appeared online [1].  This paper, in Women and Birth (published by Elsevier), was co-authored with her PhD supervisors Prof. Emerita Jo Alexander, Prof. Kath Ryan (University of Reading) and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen.

The paper highlights that despite breastfeeding providing maximum health benefits to mother and baby, many women in the United Kingdom do not breastfeed, or do so briefly.  Alison’s study explored in a novel way the everyday experiences of first-time breastfeeding mothers in the early weeks following birth.  Five UK mothers were given a camcorder to capture their real-time experiences in a video diary, until they perceived their infant feeding was established. This meant that data were collected at different hours of the day by new mothers without a researcher being present.  Using a multidimensional approach to analysis, we examined how five mothers interacted with the camcorder as they shared their emotions, feelings, thoughts and actions in real-time. In total mothers recorded 294 video clips, total recording time exceeded 43 hours.

This paper focuses on one theme, the therapeutic role of the camcorder in qualitative research. Four subthemes are discussed highlighting the therapeutic impact of talking to the camcorder: personifying the camcorder; using the camcorder as a confidante; a sounding board; and a mirror and motivator. The paper concludes that frequent opportunities to relieve tension by talking to “someone” without interruption, judgement or advice can be therapeutic and that more research is needed into how the video diary method can be integrated into standard postnatal care to provide benefits for a wider population.

Alison is Senior Lecturer in Midwifery and a member of the Centre for Midwifery, Maternatal & Perinal Health.

 

 

Reference:

  1. Taylor, A.M., van Teijlingen, E., Alexander, J. & Ryan, K. The therapeutic role of video diaries: A qualitative study involving breastfeeding mothers, Women Birth (2018), (online first)  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wombi.2018.08.160

Wellbeing in Nepal – Libraries week

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Edwin van Teijlingen, Professor of Reproductive Health Research, will talk about wellbeing in Nepal. Professor van Teijlingen has done over a decade of field research in Nepal, especially on community-based projects on maternal health.

Edwin has extensive experience in public and reproductive health and has collaborated in large-scale evaluations of community-based public-health interventions.

Most publications by Professor van Teijlingen can be found on BURO, Bournemouth University’s repository.

Thursday 11 October, 3.30pm – 4.30pm, EB306, Executive Business Centre, Lansdowne Campus

Professor Heather Hartwell research into large scale nutrition interventions to improve public health

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Professor Heather Hartwell research into large scale nutrition interventions to improve public health

Good nutrition and eating well is an important part of public health and can help stave off a number of age-related illnesses. Over the last twenty years, Bournemouth University’s Professor Heather Hartwell has been carrying out research into nutrition in the context of developing large scale interventions to improve public health. Her work has taken her from prisons to hospitals to workplace canteens. When Professor Hartwell began her research career in nutrition, much of the health policy focus was on one-to-one support for people who were struggling with associated health conditions. The idea that large scale interventions might be successful was only beginning to be recognised.

“One of the first projects I was involved in at Bournemouth University was a commission from the National Audit Office, exploring nutrition in prisons,” says Professor Hartwell, “We found that while prisoners did have healthy eating options, the catering on offer tended to over-rely on processed foods – bread, sausages and pasties, for example. This meant they were eating more salt than the general population, which can lead to high blood pressure and the risk of heart disease. Among other things, we recommended that they used the prison gardens to grow fresh produce, as it was a low-cost way of adding more vegetables to the food on offer. Around the same time, we were also looking at nutrition in hospital catering. In this setting, we found that there were much fewer healthy food options on offer and that meal production and delivery were overseen by a number of different teams – caterers, porters and ward staff. This meant that there was no real consistency and making it easier for miscommunication to take place.”

“It was quite eye-opening working in two very different public sector contexts,” continues Professor Hartwell, “As researchers, it’s important to go into every situation with humility because until you’re fully immersed in the context in which you’re working, you can’t fully appreciate the barriers that staff might be facing. In the NHS, for example, catering managers are often providing three meals per day, drinks and snacks on a very low budget, which limits what they’re able to do. You can’t achieve perfection in any situation, but co-created research can significantly improve what was there before.”

Working in public sector settings and seeing the difference that larger scale interventions could make on people’s health then led Professor Hartwell to consider the difference that healthier eating options could make in workplace canteen environments. “These settings are really important because they’re where people eat on a regular basis, not just one-off celebratory meals. If people are continually being offered unhealthy food choices, then it can have long-term implications for their health. We’re offered very little information about what’s in our food when we eat out, so my starting point was to improve that.”

Over the last few years, Professor Hartwell has been working on a major European grant, FoodSMART, which has been addressing exactly that issue. The grant enabled Professor Hartwell and her team to develop an App, which uses data provided by catering companies to help consumers to make more informed choices about their meals. “We wanted to create an IT solution for the contract catering industry which would both better inform their consumers and also give the companies an edge when competing for new contracts,” explains Professor Hartwell, “It was slightly ahead of its time when we first created it, but is getting much more interest now as workplaces are increasingly concerned about employee wellbeing. Nutrition can help contribute to better health, which helps to reduce sickness rates and can improve productivity too.”

Alongside FoodSMART, Professor Hartwell and her team were also leading on another European grant, which was looking at increasing our protein intake through vegetables. In the context of an increasing global population, it is important for the agricultural and catering sectors to consider more sustainable sources of food. “The project was about encouraging people to get their protein through vegetables, rather than meat, which uses far more resources than arable farming,” says Professor Hartwell, “It’s a healthier way of meeting our protein requirements as vegetables contain less fat and are much more sustainable in the long run.” Partly inspired by the issues of sustainability raised in this project, Professor Hartwell and her team have recently started working on a new research grant with partners in Brazil to consider how to improve our long term food security.

More information about VeggiEAT can be found here: https://microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk/veggieat/
More information about FoodSMART can be found here: https://microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk/foodsmart/

NERC standard grants (January 2019 deadline) – internal competition launched

Funding opportunities, pre-award, Uncategorized

NERC introduced demand management measures in 2012. These were revised in 2015 to reduce the number and size of applications from research organisations for NERC’s discovery science standard grant scheme. Full details can be found in the BU policy document for NERC demand management measures at: http://intranetsp.bournemouth.ac.uk/policy/BU Policy for NERC Demand Management Measures.docx.

As at March 2015, BU has been capped at one application per standard grant round. The measures only apply to NERC standard grants (including new investigators). An application counts towards an organisation, where the organisation is applying as the grant holding organisation (of the lead or component grant). This will be the organisation of the Principal Investigator of the lead or component grant.

BU process

As a result, BU has introduced a process for determining which application will be submitted to each NERC Standard Grant round. This will take the form of an internal competition, which will include peer review. The next available standard grant round is January 2019. The deadline for internal Expressions of Interest (EoI) which will be used to determine which application will be submitted is 18th October 2018.  The EoI form, BU policy for NERC Demand Management Measures and process for selecting an application can be found here: I:\R&KEO\Public\NERC Demand Management 2019.

NERC have advised that where a research organisation submits more applications to any round than allowed under the cap, NERC will office-reject any excess applications, based purely on the time of submission through the Je-S system (last submitted = first rejected). However, as RKEO submit applications through Je-S on behalf of applicants, RKEO will not submit any applications that do not have prior agreement from the internal competition.

Following the internal competition, the Principal Investigator will have access to support from RKEO, and will work closely with the Research Facilitator and Funding Development Officers to develop the application. Access to external bid writers will also be available.

Appeals process

If an EoI is not selected to be submitted as an application, the Principal Investigator can appeal to Professor Tim McIntyre-Bhatty, Deputy Vice-Chancellor. Any appeals must be submitted within ten working days of the original decision. All appeals will be considered within ten working days of receipt.

RKEO Contacts

Please contact Rachel Clarke, RKEO Research Facilitator – clarker@bournemouth.ac.uk or Jo Garrad, RKEO Funding Development Manager – jgarrad@bournemouth.ac.uk if you wish to submit an expression of interest.

International Conference on Migration Health (Rome)

BU research, conferences, Featured academics, international, Publishing, Research news, Uncategorized, writing

Two days ago Bournemouth University Visiting Professor Padam Simkhada presented our paper ‘Problems faced by Nepalese female migrants workers in the Gulf Countries: A quantitative survey’ at the International Conference on Migration Health in Rome, Italy [1].  The study reports on the health and other problems experienced by Nepali women migrants at their work place during foreign employment in Gulf Countries.  The paper is building on earlier research with the charity Pourakhi in Kathmandu which helps women who return from working abroad in trouble.  The first paper was publish earlier this year in the journal BMC International Health & Human Rights [2].  

The conference presentation was co-authored with BU’s Dr. Pramod Regmi and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, Ms. Manju Gurung from Pourakhi, Ms. Samjhana Bhujel from Green Tara Nepal, and Padam Simkhada, who is professor in the Public Health Institute at Liverpool John Moores University.

 

References:

  1. Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Bhujel, S, Gurung, M., Regmi, P. Problems faced by Nepalese female migrants workers in the Gulf Countries: A quantitative survey’ [Abstract: 238] presented at Internat. Conf. Migration Health, Rome, 1-3 Oct. 2018, http://istmsite.membershipsoftware.org/files/Documents/Activities/Meetings/Migration/FOR%20WEBSITE%20-%20ORAL%20accepted%20abstracts%20-%20session-bookmark.pdf
  2. Simkhada, P.P., van Teijlingen, E.R., Gurung, M., Wasti, S. (2018) A survey of health problems of Nepalese female migrants workers in the Middle-East and Malaysia, BMC International Health & Human Rights 18(4): 1-7. http://rdcu.be/E3Ro

Tokyo 2020 Educational Legacy

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In September Dr Debbie Sadd and Dr Hiroko Oe were invited to Tokyo by Toyo University to help staff and students build educational legacies from the upcoming Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games. This was as a result of Dr Sadd being invited by the British Council in December 2015 to present at a symposium Bournemouth University’s educational legacies from London 2012.

Toyo University have visited BU twice since as well as a larger delegation of universities with the British Council and this latest visit continues the work being undertaken to help Universities’ in Japan learn from the UK experience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

During their recent visit Debbie gave some keynote lectures which were followed by Q&A sessions with staff and students. Hiroko then led workshops where the students presented, in teams, plans for legacy building and educational lessons from Tokyo 2020.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of this work stems from the Festival Maker Legacy that BU set up with Bournemouth Council to facilitate volunteer opportunities (thanks to Ian Jones, Regional Community Engagement Manager) and Toyo are particularly keen to get their students setting up a similar scheme as soon as practical and to continue long after the Games have finished.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ouch! Missing reference

BU research, Doctoral College, Featured academics, international, Publishing, Research communication, Uncategorized, writing

One of the first rules of drafting a scientific paper is that one cites the key literature in the respective field.  So as someone who teaches people how to write and publish in this week’s experience of getting a paper rejected was not great, if not disheartening!   Earlier this week we submitted a research paper to the Journal of Travel Medicine on a study of the health and well-being of female migrant workers in Nepal.  This is high quality journal in which we have published before, including one paper on migrants’ health [1-3]. 

Two days later the journal editor emailed us to say: “”We feel that the scope of your paper would not justify a full original article in the Journal of Travel Medicine”, which is, in our opinion, a fair judgement.  My co-authors and I between us have over 300 papers published and most have been rejected or at least we have been asked for a resubmission, so nothing new here. What was more upsetting than the rejection itself was the additional comment.  The editor added:

“The authors should ideally include the two following references:

……(first reference omitted)   …. +

Identifying the gaps in Nepalese migrant workers’ health and well-being: a review of the literature.

Simkhada PP, Regmi PR, van Teijlingen E, Aryal N. J Travel Med. 2017 Jul 1;24(4). doi: 10.1093/jtm/tax021. Review.

 

We agree with the editor that we should have included the two listed key papers. Crucially, it is more than a little mistake to have missed the second paper since we wrote it ourselves.  There are many lessons to be learnt from this: (a) check you have covered the key literature in your paper, either in the Background section and/or the Discussion; (b) don’t underestimate the importance of your own work; (c) you’re never too old to make mistakes (and to learn from them); (d) be thankful for good editors and reviewers; (e) do what you advise others to do; (f) etc. ………………

 

In shame,

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

References:

  1. Hind, C., Bond, C.M., Lee, A., van Teijlingen E. (2008) Needs assessment study for community pharmacy travel medicine services, Journal of Travel Medicine 15(5): 328-334.
  2. Bhatta, P., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen E., Maybin, S. (2009) A questionnaire study of VSO volunteers: Health risk & problems encountered. Journal of Travel Medicine 16(5): 332-337.
  3. Simkhada, P.P., Regmi, P.R., van Teijlingen, E., Aryal, N. (2017) Identifying the gaps in Nepalese migrant workers’ health and well-being: A review of the literature, Journal of Travel Medicine 24 (4): 1-9.

Publishing systematic and scoping reviews to improve your research profile

BU research, Centre for Excellence in Learning, Doctoral College, Featured academics, Fusion themes, PG research, REF Subjects, Research assessment, Research communication, Research Training, Training, Uncategorized, writing

With the forthcoming REF 2021 in mind we would like to encourage both staff and postgraduate students to consider writing up their literature reviews as journal articles. Systematic and scoping reviews are a great way of publishing quality publications. They are highly valued as REF submissions, especially, but not only, in the health field.

There is plenty of support at Bournemouth University: from academic colleagues, with vast experience in writing reviews, to the library team, who can advise on, for example, developing your systematic search strategy and which databases to search.

 

You can start with publishing your review question and research strategy on PROSPERO, international prospective register of systematic reviews. We would like to highlight just one BU example in the field of the social sciences.  FHSS PhD student Orlanda Harvey published her proposed review ‘Support for people who use anabolic androgenic steroids: an investigation into what they want and what they currently access’ late last year on PROSPERO [1].

You might like to have a look at reviews published by Bournemouth University staff, which can be found by searching BURO, our institutional repository of research outputs. Moreover, BU academics have published several methods papers on the doing and writing systematic reviews [2-4].

 

Information about searching the literature for systematic reviews is available on this guide by the library team.

 

Other pages with useful information include:

 

Hopefully we have encouraged you to think about publishing your literature reviews as separate articles, and to seek help early in that process!

 

José López Blanco & Edwin van Teijlingen

 

 

For further information, please contact:

José López Blanco, Faculty Librarian (Health and Social Sciences), Library & Learning Support, Academic Services at tel 67350 or email:  hsslibteam@bournemouth.ac.uk

 

References:

  1. Harvey, O., Parrish, M., van Teijlingen, E., Keen., S. (2017) Support for people who use anabolic androgenic steroids: an investigation into what they want and what they currently access. PROSPERO 2017 CRD42017075199 Available from: http://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/display_record.php?ID=CRD42017075199
  2. van Teijlingen E., Napper, M., Bruce, J., Ireland. J. (2006) Systematic reviews in midwifery, RCM Midwives Journal 9(5): 186-188.
  3. van Teijlingen, ER, Simkhada, B., Ireland J., Simkhada P., Bruce J. (2012) Evidence-based health care in Nepal: The importance of systematic reviews, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 1(4): 114-118.
  4. Stewart, F., Fraser, C., Robertson, C., Avenell, A., Archibald, D., Douglas, F., Hoddinott, P., van Teijlingen, E., Boyers, D. (2014) Are men difficult to find? Identifying male-specific studies in MEDLINE and Embase, Systematics Reviews 3,78.

CQR “Go Create!” Lunchtime Seminars 2018-19

BU research, PG research, Research news, Uncategorized

The Centre will be hosting a number of lunchtime ‘Go Create!’ seminars for the 2018/19 academic year, all from 1pm to 2pm in Royal London House.

Wednesday 3 October – ‘Creative ways of dissemination and data gathering’, presented bY Liz Norton, Caroline Ellis-Hill and Ann Hemingway, R201

Wednesday 7 November – ‘Creating and sharing stories: Students creation of digital stories in undergraduate midwifery education’, presented by Jan Leamon, R409

Wednesday 5 December – ‘Creative Writing for Academics Mini-session’, presented by Kip Jones, R409

Wednesday 9 January – ‘Expressing research findings with an artist’, presented by Kathleen Vandenberghe, R409

Wednesday 6 February – ‘Exploring self-ageing through participatory drawing’, presented by Curie Scott, R201

Wednesday 6 March – ‘Dead Poets, Live Teachers: Using films to explore the emerging professional identities of trainee teachers’, presented by Mark Readman, R201

    R

Reflecting on research using creative methods

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We invited a lecture hall of postgraduate research (PGR) students to reflect on their hopes for their research studies using a collage methodology. Image-making enables cognitive disruption (in a good way). Collage can be mediated in various ways. In this situation, magazines and cut-out magazine images were spread across the lecture theatre. PGR students were given the prompt “what are your hopes for your future studies”. They tore out images that caught their attention which were glued onto an A4 page. The meaning of these posters was shared to gather core themes. These were then uploaded to a padlet board. At the end of the session students wrote their action plans on A4 people and sent them (literally) with doctoral college staff by launching paper planes. CEL work with teams to embed making processes into teaching practice. Please contact cscott@bournemouth.ac.uk for further information.

Good luck to all those starting post-graduate research studies!

BA Small Research Grant Awarded for project – Safe Swim: Supporting physical activity and wellbeing for transgender people

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Jayne Caudwell (Department of Events & Leisure) and Carly Stewart (Department of Sport & Physical Activity) were successful in the last round of the British Academy Small Grants Scheme. Their research project will contribute preliminary qualitative research findings to inform future provision for transgender and non-binary swim-related activities and opportunities.

Statistics demonstrate that LGBT+ have higher levels of anxiety, depression, and suicidal feelings as a consequence of feeling isolated, and experiences of rejection and bullying. The research project involves a Bournemouth-based transgender group. It focuses on their swim-related activities to explore the benefits of water-based physical activity. Currently, the group privately hires a local pool and by invitation the researchers have attended on three occasions. Preliminary participant observation has identified that group members look forward to the opportunity to swim. Swimming as a form of physical activity can enhance subjective wellbeing. However, there is evidence in the tabloid print media that public response to Swim England’s ‘Guide to Engaging Trans People in Swimming’ (December 2017) involved elements of transphobia. Specifically, a negative reaction to transgender women using female changing rooms. The funded project will provide in-depth research findings in order to influence current policy-formation.

LGBT+ experiences of sport, physical activity and embodied movement continue to be significant concerns given the barriers, constraints, prejudice and discrimination evident within institutionalised sport and physical activity. Since the 1990s sport and leisure studies scholars have documented lesbian and gay peoples’ experiences of participation. This research has helped improve opportunities for lesbian and gay people to participate by raising awareness and increased inclusion and provision. More recently, there has been a turn to transgender participants and issues surrounding the often-constraining binary arrangement and organisation of sport and physical activity. This turn is important because it highlights the different hostilities transgender and non-binary individuals face compared with lesbian and gay participants. However, the focus of this emerging research—transgender and non-binary participation—tends to be competitive sport and the structures that regulate and confirm binary-sex and gender. Less is known about grassroots participation, and/or the new/emerging opportunities and bodily pleasures transgender and non-binary individuals and communities create for themselves and for each other.

There are a small number of transgender and gender non-conforming swim groups in the UK, but there is no current research that captures transgender and non-binary experiences of swim-related activities such as negotiating access to pool time, negotiating access to changing facilities, and the thoughts, feelings and embodied experiences regarding being in the water. As such, the now-funded research is underpinned by the following objectives:

1. To work with a local transgender group to collect, process and disseminate qualitative research findings on how access to swimming facilities impacts individual and group wellbeing.

2. To explore past and present experiences of swimming for transgender and non-binary participants through interviews and focus group research.

3. To access details related to embodied experiences, which might not emerge from traditional methods such as interviews and focus groups, through visual methods such as drawings, photographs, video diaries and digital story telling.

4. To produce, for public consumption, a visual/art representation of the research participants’ experiences of swimming.