The interview with Nirmal Aryal in Nepali can be read online, click here!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH)
Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University
The interview with Nirmal Aryal in Nepali can be read online, click here!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH)
Yesterday (Sunday 15th October) Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen from BU’s Department of Midwifery and Health Sciences presented a PhD Thesis Writing Workshop at Tribhuvan University (TU), the largest and oldest university in Nepal. The session was organised by Prof. Dr. Bhimsen Devkota in the Graduate School of Education, he is also Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences at BU. Prof. Devkota is currently also involved in a major grant application to the NIHR. This application is together with colleagues in Pakistan and led by Prof. Vanora Hundly in the Department of Midwifery and Health Sciences.
Most people, including students, in Nepal only have one day, Saturday off as weekend. So teaching on a Sunday is normal here. As you would expect from an audience of largely PhD students, during and at the end of the session there was a very good range of very good questions. The teaching session was also an opportunity to promote our textbook ACADEMIC WRITING AND PUBLISHING IN HEALTH AND SOCIAL SCIENCES. This book was published April last year in Kathmandu.
October’s Community Voices webinar welcomes Lorraine Stanley Founder and CEO of SWAD – where disability and sex come together.
As a newly disabled woman in 2007 Lorraine, unable to find accessible support and guidance about sex and disability decided to be pro-active and held disability discussion groups. Feedback from the groups, and further research highlighted that health and social care professional had a lack of understanding of the obstacles faced by people with disabilities to having a fulfilling intimate and sexual life. SWAD grew out of the need to meet the gap between the requirements of the disabled community and what was being offered by service providers. SWAD believes that sex is something that can be openly discussed and should not be swept under the carpet.
Community voices is a collaboration between BU PIER partnership and Centre for Seldom Heard Voices to provide a platform and a voice to local community activists.
Microsoft Teams meeting
Join on your computer, mobile app or room device
Click here to join the meeting
Meeting ID: 397 765 953 34
Passcode: ohbzTW
October’s Community Voices webinar welcomes Lorraine Stanley Founder and CEO of SWAD – where disability and sex come together.
As a newly disabled woman in 2007 Lorraine, unable to find accessible support and guidance about sex and disability decided to be pro-active and held disability discussion groups. Feedback from the groups, and further research highlighted that health and social care professional had a lack of understanding of the obstacles faced by people with disabilities to having a fulfilling intimate and sexual life. SWAD grew out of the need to meet the gap between the requirements of the disabled community and what was being offered by service providers. SWAD believes that sex is something that can be openly discussed and should not be swept under the carpet.
Community voices is a collaboration between BU PIER partnership and Centre for Seldom Heard Voices to provide a platform and a voice to local community activists.
Microsoft Teams meeting
Join on your computer, mobile app or room device
Click here to join the meeting
Meeting ID: 397 765 953 34
Passcode: ohbzTW
Download Teams | Join on the web
Announcing a new “Research Café”: twice-monthly informal and open-format online sessions for all things research (including practice-related research), starting in October. These sessions are hosted and supported by BU academic staff members, for staff and research students.
The sessions are open to all—academic staff, student, professional support staff, ECRs, profs, whoever!
Each session will be a drop-in; no need to RSVP unless a special session has been announced. You can pop in for 5 minutes or the full hour, have your lunch and/or a cuppa, and talk about research at Bournemouth.
Where requested, we can set up dedicated sessions on topics of interest. Some suggested areas include (but are not limited to!):
Keep an eye out for calendar invitations; if you don’t receive an invitation and you’d like to, please contact Lyle at lskains at bournemouth.ac.uk.
The Research Cafe is hosted by Lyle Skains and sponsored by the Centre for Science, Health, and Data Communications Research.
This half day course is an introduction to PPI and will:
1. Define PPI and why it matters
2. Explore the links between PPI and health equity
3. Explain how to deliver PPI and support those involved
It will be an interactive session, including input from someone with lived experience, talking about their involvement in research.
It will be delivered by Sue Bickler from the Involving People team at Help and Care, an organisation that ‘helps people and communities live the lives they choose’.
Sue has worked in the voluntary sector, local authorities, and health, and has substantial experience engaging with people and communities to ensure that services meet their needs. Her current role brings together the four Healthwatch in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight (HIOW), ensuring that patient voice is central to decision making in the HIOW Integrated Care System and that people are equipped to support effective Patient and Public Involvement (PPI).
The session is funded by Clinical Research Network Wessex and is open to all health and care researchers working in Wessex including public contributors and community organisations.
Book your place here. A link to the online training will then be sent to you.
The Health Research Authority (HRA) has launched new Quality Standards to improve information given to people who are invited to take part in research. The Quality Standards have been launched alongside Design and Review Principles, which show researchers and Research Ethics Committees (REC) what the important ethical considerations are for participant information.
The Quality Standards and Design and Review Principles will be phased in from autumn 2023. As study materials are prepared in advance, REC reviews of participant information will initially be presented to research organisations as recommendations as opposed to actions required for approval.
From December 2023, the Quality Standards and Design and Review principles will become mandatory and will be applied to all research applications submitted for review.
Changes to participant information are currently the most likely reason for ethics committees to give a provisional opinion. Using this guidance will increase the possibility of receiving a favourable opinion.
Remember that BU has Participant Information Sheet templates that provide much of the required wording to ensure your participants are making a fully informed decision before agreeing to participate.
It is vital that when compiling your information sheets that you remember to include the HRA GDPR transparency wording.
If you have any questions regarding these new standards or about clinical research in general, please email Suzy Wignall, Clinical Governance Advisor – swignall@bournemouth.ac.uk or clinicalresearch@bournemouth.ac.uk
The NIHR Be Part of Research platform is an online service that makes it easy for research participants to find and take part in health and social care research. Participants may search for trials and studies taking place looking at certain health conditions and in locations accessible to them.
Clinical researchers may also make use of the service to extend their recruitment and widen their recruitment methods, as the platform has been designed to make it easier for researchers and potential study participants to find each other.
To use the service for your recruitment, the study must meet the following requirements:
Additionally, to make sure that participants contact the appropriate person, the contact details provided on ISRCTN or ClinicalTrials.gov should be up to date and accurate. In general, the registry record should be monitored continuously so that any changes are reflected on Be Part of Research as soon as possible.
If you have any questions regarding the platform or regarding clinical research in general, please email Suzy Wignall, Clinical Governance Advisor: swignall@bournemouth.ac.uk or clinicalresearch@bournemouth.ac.uk
Half of the authors are associated with Bournemouth University, two are Visiting Faculty (Prof. Dr. Padam Simkhada and Dr. Brijesh Sathian) and the third one is Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen in the Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH). The Nepal Journal of Epidemiology is an Open Access journal and therefore the paper is freely available to read to anyone across the globe.
References:
Today ResearchGate alerted me that our paper ‘Women, Midwives, and a Medical Model of Maternity Care in Switzerland’ [1] has been read 2,500 times. This paper published in the International Journal of Childbirth focuses on the organisation of maternity health care in Switzerland. Switzerland has a costly health care system with high intervention rates within an obstetric-led maternity care model. Evidence has shown that midwifery care is associated with lower cost, higher satisfaction rates among women, and less intervention. However, in this model, midwives are both marginalized and underused.
The article focuses on the distribution of power and knowledge between midwives, women, and the medical profession. The varying power structures that shape the maternity care system in Switzerland are examined, using a case study approach that draws on Foucault’s concepts of the gaze, surveillance, disciplinary power, and the docile body. This article critically analyzes the model of maternity care received by women in Switzerland and how it negatively impacts on both women’s personal and midwives’ professional autonomy while simultaneously driving up costs.
A better understanding of the underlying power structures operating within the maternity care system may facilitate the implementation of more midwifery-led care currently being endorsed by the Swiss Midwifery Association and some government agencies. This could result in reduced cost and lower intervention rates with reduced associated morbidity.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH)
Reference:
Shafkat spoke about Bangladesh’s experience of and contribution to drowning prevention. He introduced the NIHR-funded Sonamoni project with the title ‘Prevention of drowning for under-2 years old in Bangladesh’. The Sonamoni project has been made possible thanks to a grant from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) through their Research and Innovation for Global Health Transformation programme. For more information, visit the NIHR website. Bournemouth University (BU) is the joint lead organisation for the project with Centre for Injury Prevention and Research, Bangladesh (CIPRB) with as key partners the RNLI, the University of West of England, and the University of Southampton. BU’s involvement spans three faculties, namely the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences, the Faculty of Science & Technology and the Bournemouth University Business School.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH)
In May I wrote a BU Research Blog under the title ‘New ways of publishing?’ on the first time we published an academic paper in the post-review journal Qeios. The paper in question ‘The paper ‘Impact of Men’s Labour Migration on Non-migrating Spouses’ Health: A Systematic Review‘ [1] is part of Shraddha Manandhar’s Ph.D. study at the University of Huddersfield. Shraddha is supervised by the University of Huddersfield’s Prof. Philip Brown and Prof. Padam Simkhada and Bournemouth University’ Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen. Today’s blog is an update on that novel publishing journey.
The first point to make is that our paper received twenty-two reviews, not two or three, but 22 different people read and commented on this paper. Sure, some reviews were better than others, some were more insightful, others were more generic, some seem to miss out points, or perhaps skimming the surface a little, but still twenty-two reviews! Secondly, by the nature of post-publication review we have taken the reviews to heart and submitted the second improved version of the paper [2]. The new reference for the paper is very similar to the first one, apart from the new submission data and the indication in the https that we are now on the second version [2]. Thirdly, each of the 22 reviews has its own DOI, and hence can easily be quoted. In the second version of the paper we have cited several of the online reviews [e.g. 3-6]. Last, but not least, Qeois offers Open Access and publishing is free of charge.
The great unknown for us how the academic world is going to view post-publication way of peer-reviewing. We realize that we have been lucky in getting 22 reviews for this paper. As part of learning about Qeios I read a 2022 paper in one of my areas of interest and submitted my own review [7]; this review was only the fifth for the paper.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health
References:
On Monday and Tuesday 18-19 June the University of Huddersfield will organize its Global Consortium in Public Health meeting. This meeting is the brain child of Prof. Padam Simkhada, he is Visiting Professor at Bournemouth University and based at the University of Huddersfield. The event brings together public health researchers and experts from the UK, the USA, Ghana, Nepal, India, Qatar and Brazil to discuss the latest developments and challenges in the field. The Global Consortium in Public Health is an international network of public health researchers, practitioners, and policymakers who are committed to advancing the field of public health through collaborative research, education, and advocacy. The consortium provides a platform for sharing best practices and building future collaborations.
On Monday 19th June Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen will be talking about the REF 2028 and the importance of strong international partnerships in the fields of research and education. BU’s Dr. Pramod Regmi was also invited to this event in Huddersfield, but he is on his way to Nepal as part of Bournemouth University’s Erasmus+ staff and student exchange with Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (MMIHS).
Apply to participate here! More details below.
Co-organised by the Media Production department and CESJ (the Centre for the Study of Conflict, Emotion and Social Justice).
19th and 20th July, 2023 (venue TBC)
This two-day sandpit creates a dynamic approach to the development of concepts for innovative projects and funding bids. By the end of both days, the participants will form interdisciplinary project teams and generate proposals (including pinpointing external partners) for funded projects on media and social justice issues. See more details in the programme outline.
The event will involve participants from across BU, who are interested in, or already doing research on, social justice issues. It will establish an interdisciplinary dialogue, enhance the scope for public engagement or knowledge transfer, increase the potential for impact, improve the chances for successful bids, and establish cross-institutional networks as seedbeds for future projects.
The sandpit will culminate in project pitches to a panel of senior staff (see below) for constructive feedback and for allocating a bid-writing mentor. After the event, the teams will be offered mentorship to support writing the full funding application.
We welcome any BU-based junior to mid-career researcher, artist, practitioner or anyone with a general interest in media and social justice. You should be keen to work in a multidisciplinary team, and willing to commit to attending the full sandpit, on both days. No prior experience of research funding is required.
To secure your spot in the Sandpit, please complete and submit the following application – note that all participants must commit to attending both full days:
The event will be facilitated by Dr. Catalin Brylla and Dr. Lyle Skains, and the pitching panel and mentors will include Prof. Richard Berger, Prof. Candida Yates, Prof. Christa van Raalte, Dr. Sue Sudbury, Dr. Christopher Pullen, and Dr. Karl Rawstrone.
If you have any queries, please don’t hesitate to contact Catalin at cbrylla@bournemouth.ac.uk, or Lyle at lskains@bournemouth.ac.uk.
The World Health Organization (WHO) suggests that in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) like Nepal, morbidity and mortality risks are greater per litre of pure alcohol consumed than in higher-income countries. This is largely due to poverty, poor nutrition, adverse living conditions, and poor access to care. These inequities are made worse by the dearth of understanding of the most appropriate and cost-effective approaches to reduce alcohol-related harm in LMICs. Our study aims to stimulate new thinking on how cultural and community assets could be integrated to co-designed alcohol interventions for future evaluation in LMICs, through scoping the breadth of cultural and community assets in relation to alcohol use and to exploring attitudes towards alcohol and people experiences with it.
The journal Perspectives in Public Health is published by SAGE and the paper will be Open Access when it appears online. My previous alcohol studies have focused on students [2], Nepalese migrants living in the UK [3], and Public Health measures to reduced alcohol misuse in Scotland [4].
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health
Reference:
This week we had the luxury of four exchange visitors from Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (MMIHS) in Nepal who are here on the Erasmus+ scheme. Erasmus+ funds are a great way to build academic networks and gain experience of teaching and learning elsewhere. Global staff mobility, including training and teaching, leads to professional development and networking and brings great value to BU and our students, whilst also offering invaluable international experience for BU staff and postgraduate students in Nepal.
Today Prof. Sujan Marahatta, Dr. Sujata Sapkota and Dr. Sujan Gautam offered a workshop under the title ‘Introducing federalization in Nepal: What are the effects on its health system?’ All three academics are part of the Nepal Federal Health System Project, our major collaborative project examining the consequences for the health system of Nepal’s move to a federal government structure in 2015. This is a joint project (2020-2024) led by the University of Sheffield and it is an collaboration with Bournemouth University, the University of Huddersfield, MMIHS and PHASE Nepal. This longitudinal interdisciplinary study is funded by the UK Health Systems Research Initiative [Grant ref. MR/T023554/1]. After highlighting the difference between ‘federalisation’ and ‘decentralisation’, the Nepalese academics briefly explained the political changes in the Nepal over the past decade or so. Followed by an outline of the project’s research methods and the key preliminary findings. The presenters focused on the data generated through a participatory method called River of Life, and from the policy analysis based on the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Health System Building blocks. This project has resulted in three publications to date [1-3].
Our visitors got involved in a range of teaching activities, for example, Prof. Beenu Bista, Professor of Nursing at MMIHS, taught various groups of BU nursing students earlier this week, whilst Dr. Sujata Sapkota helped supervise and advise one of BU’s M.Sc. Public Health students for her dissertation project.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH)
References:
You are invited to a two-hour ‘Workshop on Health Systems in Nepal’ at Bournemouth University (BU) on Thursday 25th May in the Bournemouth Gateway Building (BGB room 315) starting at 14.00, aiming to finish at 16.00. We have the pleasure of welcoming three academic visitors from Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (MMIHS) in Kathmandu who are at BU on an Erasmus+ exchange.
‘Prof. Sujan Marahatta, Dr. Sujata Sapkota and Dr. Sujan Gautam from MMIHS are part of an international project examining the consequences for the health system of Nepal’s move to a federal government structure. This project, launched in 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, is led by the University of Sheffield, in collaboration with BU, the University of Huddersfield, PHASE Nepal and MMIHS. This nearly four-year project is UK-funded by the MRC (Medical Research Council), the Wellcome Trust and DFID (now called Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office [FCDO]) under the Health Systems Research Initiative.
The project has resulted in several publications, all in Open Access journals. The first of three papers introduced the research project ‘The impact of federalisation on Nepal’s health system: a longitudinal analysis’ [1], the second focused on COVID-19 when examining the effects of changing Nepal’s constitution towards a federal republic on its health system [2], and the third one highlighted Public Health approaches around the ongoing federalisation of the state of Nepal and the associated decentralisation processes in its health system [3].
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (formerly CMMPH)
References:
On 10th May 2023 we welcomed our regular group of local older people and practitioners to the ADRC coffee morning. In this session, we heard about collaborative work on the impact of drumming on health and wellbeing. Firstly, Dr Kim Brown from Nature Therapy Community Interest Company (CIC) introduced her work aimed at building sensory resilience with unique arts-based projects involving horses, wolves, forests, the sea, medicine wheel, labyrinths, and art and music including drumming. The research team (Dr Michelle Heward, Dr Caroline Ellis-Hill, and Lyndsey Bradley) then shared findings from a research project focused on drumming with people with dementia (for more detail see paragraph below). The group then had a go at drumming – it was very lively, and everyone enjoyed taking part!
Drumming for dementia research
Nature Therapy have developed a level one Drumming for Dementia online course, to support family carers and care staff in health and social care settings to use drumming with people with dementia. The research project involved evaluating the impact of the course in care and home environments and was funded by the Burdett Trust for Nursing ‘Small Grants 2020 programme’. The findings demonstrate that it is possible to gain confidence to practice drumming with people with dementia through the level one course provided by Nature Therapy CIC. And that these have led to positive impacts in terms of reduced agitation and greater engagement for those living with dementia.
To access the course visit https://www.naturetherapyonline.com/ click on ‘more’ and then ‘drumming for dementia course’.
For more information about the study please email adrc@bournemouth.ac.uk
Future ADRC coffee mornings
ADRC coffee mornings are a forum for local people, practitioners, and researchers to meet to discuss ideas for research and share research findings. They take place on the second Wednesday of the month and are mostly virtual with an occasional face to face session. If you would like to present your research to the group at a future coffee morning, please contact adrc@bournemouth.ac.uk