Bournemouth University wishes all its Nepali students, staff and collaborators in both the UK and in Nepal a Healthy and Happy New Year 2078 today.


Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University
Bournemouth University wishes all its Nepali students, staff and collaborators in both the UK and in Nepal a Healthy and Happy New Year 2078 today.
We have planned three stages: 1) virtual mini workshops, guided discussion/input on academic writing, publishing, journal submission, and review processes ; 2) online workshops where participants present their draft papers/work and receive feedback from peers, mentors, invited speakers/editors and opportunities networking/collaborations (for co-authorship, peer review and peer support); and 3) monthly tutorials (webinars) later in 2021 to provide mentorship and peer support to participants.
This application is third time lucky as two previous applications to The British Academic for Writing Work had not been successful. Over the years the team has build up capacity in academic writing and publishing in Nepal ad hoc. This grant will allow us to offer a more systematic approach to academic writing capacity building in Nepal. It is building on a growing number of paper published by FHSS staff on various aspects of academic writing and publishing. [1-14]
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Four PhD students, whom I had the pleasure of supervising, graduated yesterday with a Ph.D. I never had so many Ph.D. students graduating at the same time. Not all of these four students started at the same time. Moreover, two I was invited as a supervisor after the student had started, and for most I was not the lead/first supervisor . All four students have an internationally focused thesis:
Alice Ladur with her Ph.D. focusing on: Male involvement in facilitating the uptake of maternal health services by women in Uganda.
Peter Wolfensberger with his Ph.D.: Creating meaning- Understanding the experiences of people living with mental illness in Switzerland- A Qualitative Study.
Shaqaieq AShrafi Dost with her thesis: Factors that affect the management capacity, leadership and employee performance in the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), Afghanistan: A single embedded single-case study.
Orlanda Harvey with her Ph.D. study under the title: Male anabolic androgenic steroid-users: A mixed-methods study -The voice of the AAS-user.
Orlanda is a good ambassador for Bournemouth University’s PhD Integrated Thesis. The newly introduced Integrated Thesis allows Ph.D. candidates to incorporate papers in their thesis (e.g. instead of a chapter). Papers can be included that have been published or submitted for publication to an academic peer-reviewed journal. As the first BU student to submit an Integrated Thesis Orlanda paved the way with BU library staff to sort out the finer details around, for example, copyright issues and thesis formatting (https://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/2020/08/27/supporting-integrated-theses-at-bu/ ).
In this COVID-19 year the graduation was on ZOOM, something I didn’t think would work as well as it did. I love the British-style graduation with the big audience, the ceremony, the gowns, the band, etc. In previous years I had always looked forward to ceremony in the BIC, the Bournemouth International Centre. This year because it was on ZOOM the event was smaller, shorter and more personal. This offered the opportunity to talk to students and colleagues which is otherwise nearly impossible in the hustle and bustle of thousands of people in the BIC.
Being a graduation it is also the end of an era for the student and the supervisor, and the beginning of a new one.
CMMPH (Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health)
Today FHSS Prof. Jonathan Parker published an article (online first) on structural discrimination and abuse associated with COVID-19 in care homes in The Journal of Adult Protection [1]. Whilst Dr. Preeti Mahato, Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen and FHSS Visiting Professor Padam Simkhada had a COVID-19 paper published in the Journal of Midwifery Association of Nepal (JMAN) in late-January 2021 [2], although an electronic copy only reached their email inbox today.
Today our chapter: Birth Systems across the World: Variations in maternity policy and services across countries was published in the renowned series of books: FIGO Continuous Textbook of Women’s Medicine [1]. This chapter was co-authored by Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) with Prof. Sirpa Wrede and Doctoral Researcher from the University of Helsinki (Finland) and Dr. from the European University at St. Petersburg (Russia). The chapter includes a set of recommendations for future practice.
Volume 1 is edited by Prof. Jane Sandall from King’s College London. Earlier this year Prof. Sandall was appointed as the first-ever head of midwifery research for England and one of her key focuses will be around ending racial health inequalities in maternity care.
Everything published on The Global Library of Women’s Medicine is available to everyone everywhere for free and there is no requirement to register in order to view it.
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The year 2021 started in many ways in the same way as it had ended with a country gripped in COVID-19 and a national lock down to limit the spread of the disease. It is appropriate timely that the first publication from our international collaboration, studying the health system in Nepal, focuses on COVID-19 [1]. This academic paper forms part of our on-going study of the decentralisation of the Nepal health system. The study is run by the University of Sheffield, the University of Huddersfield and Bournemouth University in the UK and PHASE Nepal and Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences in Nepal. The study is funded by the UK Health Systems Research Initiative.
This paper was unplanned as nobody (neither in the UK or in Nepal) had heard of COVID-19 when we submitted the grant application in mid-2019. It was only when we started our project officially in April 2020 that COVID-19 had become the pandemic it is today. We took the opportunity to assess some of the early evidence on the effectiveness of the actions taken to deal with COVID-19 by the national government as well as provincial and local governments and the levels of cooperation and coordination between them.
Authors on this include BU PhD graduate Dr. Pratik Adhikary and FHSS Visiting Professor Padam Simkhada, as well as our collaborator on other funded projects, Dr. Sujan Marahatta from Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (Nepal).
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
Reference:
Peer reviewing is the backbone of academic publishing. It is this peer review process to ensure that papers/publications have been vetted scientifically prior to publication by experts in the field, i.e. one’s peers. However, the process is not without its problems. One such problems is the delay in academic publishing. For example, a few days ago we published a substantive editorial on COVID-19 in Qater [1]. When we submitted this in July 2020 the information in our editorial was very up to date, and it still was when the Qatar Medical Journal accepted it on 26th July 2020. Unfortunately, with all the incredibly rapid developments in vaccine development, approval and roll out some of the paper now reads like ‘historial data’.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH)
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An evidence-based, multidisciplinary approach on risk zoning, personal and transmission risk assessment in near real-time, and risk communication would support the optimized decisions to minimize the impact of coronavirus on our lives. This interdisciplinary paper [1], pubished today in Scientific Reports, offers a framework to assess the individual and regional risk of COVID-19 along with risk communication tools and mechanisms. Relative risk scores on a scale of 100 represent the integrated risk of influential factors. The personal risk model incorporates age, exposure history, symptoms, local risk and existing health condition, whereas regional risk is computed through the actual cases of COVID-19, public health risk factors, socioeconomic condition of the region, and immigration statistics. A web application tool (http://www.covira.info) has been developed, where anyone can assess their risk and find the guided information links primarily for Nepal. This study provides regional risk for Nepal, but the framework is scalable across the world.
The authors comprised researchers from the University of Bristol, Science Hub (Nepal), University of the West of England, Public Health Perspective Nepal, Nepal Open University, Center for Molecular Dynamics Nepal, Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, the University of Huddersfield and Bournemouth University.
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BU Visiting Faculty Dr. Emma Pitchforth (Senior Lecturer in Primary Care, University of Exeter) spoke this week at International insights: What can the development of community hospitals in international contexts tell us about their role in healthcare futures?, the first of three UK Community Hospital online seminars. Emma presented our NIHR study on Community Hospitals [1-3].
Community hospitals are a crucial but often neglected part of the health care systems in the UK. Community Hospitals are often very popular with local communities but they often face political challenges. COVID-19 has prompted us to make dramatic changes to way we think about and organise health care. Community hospitals have made a significant contribution to the health and wellbeing during the pandemic. The flexibility, resilience and strong community engagement typical of many community hospitals is being brought to the fore. At this critical time, questions are being asked about the future role of community hospitals and what lessons we can learn from other countries.
There will be two further webinars at lunch time on the 12th and 19th November. You can register using the following link: https://bham-ac-uk.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_dX8LwdHxQX2-Mf8nlt8nwg .
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health
References:
Today saw the publication of a new paper ‘Importance of involving patients and public in Health Technology Assessment (HTA) and health research in South Asia’ co-authored by the BU Public Involvement in Education and Research (PIER) Partnership [1]. This paper is co-written with Dr. Bibha Simkhada, until recently Lecturer in Nursing in N4LTH Centre (Nursing for Long-Term Health) and now Senior Lecturer in Nursing at the University of Huddersfield, Dr. Aliya Naheed at icddr,b in Bangladesh, Angela Warren based at PIER, Dr. Sue Green (Principal Academic) and Prof. Edwin van Teilingen. The paper appears in the International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care, which is published by Cambridge University Press.
The authors highlights that Patient and Public Involvement/Engagement (PPI/E) in public health research and Health Technology Assessment (HTA) in has significantly increased over past decade in countries such as the UK. PPI/E helps improve health research and hence benefits patients and service users. For example, organisations like BU’s PIER bring a unique patients and (potential) users’ perspective of these services, which enables FHSS to enhance the education the future workforce in health and social care as well as research in this area.
However, PPI/E is still very new concept in many LMICs (Low- and Middle-Income Countries). This paper considers the importance of PPI in public health research and HTA in the development and implementation of technology in the health sector in South Asia. Currently, in this region, health technology is frequently adopted from HICs without local research and HTA. It also discusses the importance of local co-creation of technology to reflect the needs of users within a culturally appropriate setting. It is important for LMIC-based researchers to understand the potential of PPI/E and how it can contribute to it to improve health care and research, especially perhaps in the era of COVID-19.
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Today we added to our growing pool of publications on aspects of labour migration in Nepal. The Open Access journal BMC Health Services Research published our paper ‘Accessing health services in India: experiences of seasonal migrants returning to Nepal’ [1]. The paper explores the experiences of returnee Nepali migrants with regard to accessing healthcare and the perspectives of stakeholders in the government, support organizations, and health providers working with migrant workers in India. The paper concludes that Nepali migrants experience difficulties in accessing healthcare in India. Hence the authors recommend partnerships between the Nepali and Indian governments, migrant support organizations and relevant stakeholders such as healthcare providers, government agencies and employers should be strengthened so that this vulnerable population can access the healthcare to which they are entitled.
Three of the authors are based at BU (Dr. Nirmal Aryal, Dr. Pramod Regmi & Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen), whilst Dr. Pratik Adhikary is a BU PhD graduate and Prof. Padam Simkhada, from the University of Huddersfield, is BU Visiting Faculty.This qualitative paper is part of a larger International Organization for Migration research project on ‘Health vulnerabilities of the cross-border migrants from Nepal’ [2].
The authors to acknowledge the continuous support from Green Tara Nepal (GTN) during the field work. This Open Access paper from this FHSS team of researchers on migration and health research related to Nepal is the 19th paper in total on the topic [3-19].
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Last week I sent a reminder email to a health journal in Nepal enquiring about the progress of our submitted manuscript, assuming it had got stuck somewhere in the peer review process. The reply threw me a little and made me realise that some people’s situation is far and far worse than we think. The Nepali editor’s email went:
Dear Professor Edwin
Thank you for your email.
I will update the progress as early as possible.
Stay Safe.
PS: 25% of the medical personnel in the hospital where I am working is infected with COVID-19.
Hope for the positive news.
I immediately replied and told him not to worry and take as long as necessary. It also made me realise that we don’t always put ourselves in the editor’s shoes, even though I am a journal editor myself.
Food for thought!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
Being asked to examine a PhD thesis is a honour for most academics. As an examiner you always learn something new. If not about the topic itself, you may learn different ways of applying a research method or new theoretical explanations or even new ideas for supervising your own PhD students. It is a joy to have an in-depth scientific discussion with a dedicated and motivated candidate. Usually the candidate is a little nervous, especially at the start of the viva, and I see it as one of my tasks as an examiner to help the candidate to relax a little.
Today I had the pleasure of being one of the examiners for a PhD at the University of Maastricht (the Netherlands). The PhD candidate (now Dr.) Franka Cadée was a little nervous according to her supervisors, although it did not show during the viva.
Interestingly, enough I also felt nervous! Before today I had examined 50th PhD thesis in seven different countries. However, I probably had not felt this nervous since my own viva nearly three decades ago. Why was I nervous? First, although I am Dutch and I have studied in the Netherlands and the UK, I had never attended a PhD examination in the Netherlands. And PhD examinations really do differ between the UK and most northern European countries, especially the public defence of the thesis by the candidate in front of examiners, colleagues, friends and family. Secondly, the candidate today is the president of the ICM (the International Confederation of Midwives). Of course, this does not make any difference in the examination process, this candidate was treated the same as any other student would have been. Thirdly, and most importantly, the ICM had globally advertised the public defence of Dr. Cadée’s thesis to midwives, maternity policy-makers, member of International Non-Governmental Organisations and maternity care providers and invited ‘everybody’ to watch on ZOOM.
I really think it was the latter that made me more nervous than the much more private UK PhD viva with perhaps five or six people in a small class room, or, these days, on ZOOM.
Finally, my congratulations to Dr. Franka Cadée on the successful defence of her thesis Twinning, a promising dynamic process to strengthen the agency of midwives.
Professor Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH)
Yesterday the scientific journal Nepal Journal of Epidemiology published in its latest edition a paper co-authored by BU’s Prof. Hamid Bouchacha. The Short Discussion paper ‘Artificial Intelligence and Health in Nepal’ [1] is an interdisciplinary paper written by two chemists, a computer scientist, an epidemiologist, and a social scientist.
The Nepal Journal of Epidemiology is the official journal of the International Nepal Epidemiological Association (INEA). It is freely available as an Open Access journal on the journal’s own website and it is indexed in PubMed and PubMed Central.
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Some weeks are more productive than others and this week the academics in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) have been very busy. Professor Hundley published a paper ‘The initiation of labour at term gestation: physiology and practice implications’ with two midwifery colleagues [1]. The further two CMMPH paper accepted this week were systematic reviews: (a) Perceived Stress and Diet Quality in Women of Reproductive Age: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis; and (b) ‘Midwives’ views towards women using mHealth and eHealth to self-monitor their pregnancy: A systematic review of the literature’ [2-3]. Fourthly, CMMPH PhD student Sulochana Dhakal-Rai had a poster accepted at this year’s GLOW conference, which will be held, for the first time, online. This poster based on her PhD ‘Factors contributing to rising caesarean section rates in South Asia: a systematic review’ is supervised by Dr. Juliet Wood, Dr. Pramod Regmi, Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen and Prof. Ganesh Dangal (based in Nepal).
Congratulations!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
References:
Khaled K, Tsofliou F, Hundley V, Helmreich R, Almilaji O Perceived Stress and Diet Quality in Women of Reproductive Age: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Nutrition (in press)
Vickery M, van Teijlingen E, Hundley V, Smith GB, Way S, Westward G. Midwives’ views towards women using mHealth and eHealth to self-monitor their pregnancy: A systematic review of the literature. European Journal of Midwifery (in press)
Yesterday the Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences published our editorial ‘Public Health is truly interdisciplinary’ [1]. This editorial was largely written to counteract some of the jurisdictional claims made in Nepal by certain people in Public Health. These claims express themselves in arguments around the question whether Public Health is a single academic discipline or profession or whether it is a broad profession comprising many different academic disciplines. There are two quite distinct and opposing views. Some argue that Public Health is a broad-ranging single discipline covering sub-disciplines such as Epidemiology, Management, Public Health Practice, Health Psychology, Medical Statistics, Sociology of Health & Illness and Public Health Medicine. Those who support this argument, typically see: (a) Public Health is the overarching dominant discipline, which brings these sub-disciplines together; and (b) that a true Public Health practitioner amalgamates all these individual elements. Others argue that Public Health is more an overarching world view or interdisciplinary approach for wide-ranging group of professionals and academics [2]. In this view some Public Health professionals are first trained as clinicians, others as psychologists, health economists, health management, statisticians, or demographers, and so on and have later specialised in Public Health.
However, their are people in the field claiming that Public Health is a single discipline that can only /or even best be practice and taught by those with an undergraduate degree in Public Health. Basically suggesting you you need a Public Health degree to practice or teach the discipline. Our editorial argues that this latter view suggests a rather limited understanding of the broad church that is Public Health.
This latest editorial is co-authored by Dr. Sharada P. Wasti in Nepal, Prof. Padam Simkhada, who is based at the University of Huddersfield and BU Visiting Faculty and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH). Both articles listed below are Open Access and free available to readers across the globe.
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New BU co-authored article ‘Building Strong Primary Health Care to Tackle the Growing Burden of Non-Communicable Diseases in Nepal’ will be published soon [1]. This paper has been accepted by the international journal Global Health Action (published by Taylor & Francis). The international authorship comprises Nepal, Denmark and the UK.
Nepal is currently facing a double burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and communicable diseases, with rising trends in the former. This situation will add great pressure to already fragile health systems and pose a major challenge to the country’s development unless urgent action is taken. The paper argues that while the primary health care approach offers a common platform to effectively address NCDs through preventive and curative interventions, its potential is not fully tapped in Nepal. In line with the Alma-Ata and Astana declarations, the authors propose an integrated approach for Nepal, and other low-and middle-income countries, including six key reforms to enhance the primary care response to the increasing burden of NCDs. These six key areas are: (1) Life-course approach to addressing NCDs; (2) Task shifting for NCD risk factor management; (3) Strengthening informal care givers; (4) Strengthening quality of PHC and health systems; (5) Establish strategic information management system; and (6) Healthcare financing.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
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Updated message (8 July 2020): due to floods in Assam this week this international conference has been postponed by a few weeks.
If you are interested in a more global perspective of COVID-19 you may want to attend the upcoming Online International Conference “COVID-19: A Global Perspective” to be held from 29 to 31 July, 2020 by the PG Department of Economics, Gossaigaon College, Gauhati University, Assam, INDIA. BU will be contributing to the sub-theme COVID-19 and its impact on the health sector.
Professor Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH