Tagged / Health

Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund: £300m to support our ageing population

Business Engagement

Innovate UK have announced that £300m will be available to businesses and researchers to address the challenges facing our ageing population. Some £98m of this funding will be reserved for research and innovation that supports the care and health of people as they age. A further £198m will become available to support the use of early diagnosis innovation and the development of precision medicine.

This funding will be available from UK Research and Innovation with the challenges running in 2018 and 2019.  As the opportunities become available, please contact Ehren Milner (emilner@bournemouth.ac.uk) if you have any queries.

 

Wellcome Trust Visit – 9th May 2018

As part of the Research and Knowledge Exchange Development Framework, we are excited to announce that Wellcome Trust will be visiting BU on 9th May 2018.

This visit from Wellcome Trust will provide an overview of who they are, their remit, types of funding offered, their decision-making processes and timeframes and planning a Wellcome Trust application.

The session will be held over lunchtime. Book your place here.

NIHR Fellowships Event 21st March 2018 – LAST CHANCE TO BOOK

 

As part of the Research and Knowledge Exchange Development Framework, RKEO are holding a session on NIHR Fellowships.

The NIHR Fellowship Event will provide information about NIHR’s Fellowship schemes, and offer some hints and tips for a successful application. We are pleased to welcome the following speakers:

  • Dr Gordon Taylor, Research Design Service South West, NIHR Doctoral Panel Member & Reader in Medical Statistics, University of Bath
  • NIHR Trainees Coordinating Centre (TBC)
  • Clare Gordon, BU NIHR Fellow

Date: Wednesday 21st March 2018

Time: 12:00-13:00

Venue: Lansdowne Campus

The session is open to all academics, researchers and clinicians who have an interest in applying for NIHR Fellowships.

Please book your space through Eventbrite.

About the NIHR Fellowship Programme: The NIHR is the UK’s major funder of applied health research. All of the research it funds works towards improving the health and wealth of the nation. The NIHR develops and supports the people who conduct and contribute to health research and equally supports the training of the next generation of health researchers. NIHR training programmes provide a unique opportunity for all professionals to improve the health of patients in their care through research. Training and career development awards from the NIHR range from undergraduate level through to opportunities for established investigators and research leaders. They are open to a wide range of professions and designed to suit different working arrangements and career pathways.

BU’s Joanne Holmes’ interview with Elder about healthy appetite in older people

Food scientist and BU lecturer in Nutrition, Joanne Holmes, talks to Elder about the importance of socialisation, stimulation and choice to encourage healthy appetite in older people.

“As a nutritionist, I became aware of the fact that there was growing evidence that under-nutrition, commonly known as malnutrition, is a prevalent problem for older people. The figures show that up to about 45 percent of older people living in residential care are at risk of under-nutrition, and for those over 75 years old living on their own, it runs between 35-40 percent,” says Joanne Holmes.

“It was apparent that we were good at monitoring and assessing the fact that people were undernourished – what wasn’t so clear was what was happening to follow that up and move people from being undernourished to an acceptable weight.

“I wanted to understand what and how much people were eating and drinking and whether or not it was the mealtime experience that affected that.

“There are usually a series of events that are linked to undernourishment when someone goes into care. What generally happens is that someone will struggle at home, for one reason or another – perhaps there might be a dementia diagnosis, and they can’t continue to live on their own, or they fall and aren’t able to get around. They eventually end up in hospital, and then in long-term residential care. But once they’re in care, it’s tough to try and get them eating again.

“I come from a food science background, and I think a lot of the work to-date has been done by looking at undernourishment from a clinical point of view. I wanted to come at it from a food angle and look at enhancing the eating experience for those in care.”

Read the full interview here.

BU Briefing – Mii-vitaliSe: Using Nintendo Wii™ to increase activity levels, vitality and well-being in people with multiple sclerosis.

Our BU briefing papers are designed to make our research outputs accessible and easily digestible so that our research findings can quickly be applied – whether to society, culture, public policy, services, the environment or to improve quality of life. They have been created to highlight research findings and their potential impact within their field. 

The benefits of physical activity for people with multiple sclerosis (MS) have been recognised. Physical activity has been shown to be associated with improvements in mobility, muscle strength and physical fitness. Other secondary benefits might include reduced fatigue, depression and anxiety and improved sense of wellbeing.

This research team have developed a home-based physiotherapist supported Nintendo Wii™ intervention (‘Mii-vitaliSe’) for people with MS that uses commercial software. This is a pilot study to explore the feasibility of conducting a full scale clinical and cost-effectiveness trial of Mii-vitaliSe.

Click here to read the briefing paper.

For more information about the research, contact Sarah Thomas at saraht@bournemouth.ac.uk.
To find out how your research output could be turned into a BU Briefing, contact research@bournemouth.ac.uk.

Latest editorial on Nepal by Dr. Regmi in FHSS

international, open access, Publishing, writing

Last week the Journal of Manmoham Memorial Institute of Health Sciences based in Nepal published as its editorial ‘What can we learn from the Nepal Health Facility Survey 2015. [1]  The Nepal Health Facility Survey 2015 is a first of its kind.  It is a much needed start to help analyse and improve the workings of the country’s health system.  This is very important and timely as one of the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) is to reduce premature mortality by one-third from non-communicable diseases.  Success in this effort will depend on the concerted efforts on health facilities (for both health promotion, prevention and management) for an early and optimal care. The editorial also raises some of the ethical and methodological issues associated with the first ever Nepal Health Facility Survey 2015.  The lead author of the editorial is Dr. Pramod Regmi and our co-authors include Prof. Padam Simkhada (Visiting Faculty in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences).  The Journal of Manmoham Memorial Institute of Health Sciences is an Open Access journal hence freely available to scholars and politicians and health managers across the globe, including those based in low-income countries such as Nepal.

 

Reference:

  1. Regmi, P., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P, Kurmi, O, Pant, P. (2017) What can we learn from the Nepal Health Facility Survey 2015? Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (JMMIHS) 3(1): 1-5

 

Systematic Review birthing centres by CMMPH PhD student Preeti Mahato

international, open access, PG research, Publishing, Student Engagement, student research, writing

BU PhD student Mrs Preeti Mahato published her latest scientific paper ‘Determinants of quality of care and access to Basic Emergency Obstetric and Neonatal Care facilities and midwife-led facilities in low and middle-income countries: A Systematic Review’ in the Journal of Asian Midwives [1].  This paper is co-authored by Dr. Catherine Angell and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, who are both based in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) and Prof. Padam Simkhada, BU Visiting Professor and based at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU).  Journal of Asian Midwives is a free Open Access journal, freely available for anybody across the globe to read online.

The authors highlight that maternal mortality is a major challenge to health systems in Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) where almost 99% of maternal deaths occurred in 2015. Primary-care facilities providing Basic Emergency Obstetric and Neonatal Care (BEmONC) facilities, and facilities that are midwife-led are appropriate for normal birth in LMICs and have been proposed as the best approach to reduce maternal deaths. However, the poor quality of maternal services that leads to decreased utilisation of these facilities is among the major causes of maternal deaths worldwide. This systematic review studied factors affecting the quality of care in BEmONC and midwife-led facilities in LMICs.

Thematic analysis on included studies revealed various factors affecting quality of care including facility-level determinants and other determinants influencing access to care. Facility-level determinants included these barriers: lack of equipment and drugs at the facility, lack of trained staff, poor attitudes and behaviour of service providers, and poor communication with women. Facility-level positive determinants were: satisfaction with services, emotional support during delivery and trust in health providers. The access-to-care determinants were: socio-economic factors, physical access to the facility, maintaining privacy and confidentiality, and cultural values.  The authors include that improving quality of care of birthing facilities requires addressing both facility level and non-facility level determinants in order to increase utilization of the services available at the BEmONC and midwife-led facilities in LMICs.

This is the fifth paper co-authored by CMMPH’s current most published PhD student.  The evaluation of birth centres in rural Nepal by Preeti Mahato under joint supervision Dr. Angell and Prof. Simkhada (LJMU) and Prof. van Teijlingen.

References:

  1. Mahato, P., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Angell, C. (2017) Determinants of quality of care & access to Basic Emergency Obstetric & Neonatal Care facilities & midwife-led facilities in low & middle-income countries: A Systematic Review, Journal of Asian Midwives 4(2):25-51.
  2. Mahato, P., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Angell, C. (2016) Birthing centres in Nepal: Recent developments, obstacles and opportunities, Journal of Asian Midwives 3(1): 18-30. http://ecommons.aku.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1033&context=jam
  3. Mahato, P., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Sheppard, Z., Silwal, R.C. (2017) Factors related to choice of place of birth in a district in Nepal. Sexual & Reproductive Healthcare 13: 91-96.
  4. Mahato, P.K., Regmi, P.R., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Angell, C., Sathian, B. (2015) Birthing centre infrastructure in Nepal post 2015 earthquake. Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 5(4): 518-519. http://www.nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/article/view/14260/11579
  5. Regmi, P., van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V., Simkhada, P., Sharma, S., Mahato, P. (2016) Sustainable Development Goals: relevance to maternal & child health in Nepal. Health Prospect 15(1):9-10. www.healthprospect.org/archives/15/1/3.pdf

BU Briefing – Inattention, working memory and goal neglect regarding ADHD

Our BU briefing papers are designed to make our research outputs accessible and easily digestible so that our research findings can quickly be applied – whether to society, culture, public policy, services, the environment or to improve quality of life. They have been created to highlight research findings and their potential impact within their field. 

For many years Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) was thought to be a disorder exclusive to childhood, and has only recently been recognised as existing in adults. Around 6% of adults have the classic ADHD symptom of inattention and have difficulty concentrating, remembering things and organisation.

This paper examines whether inattention may be linked with problems in the brain system which co-ordinate Working Memory (WM). WM allows you to hold information in your mind while either manipulating the information, or doing something else at the same time. It is essential to build a stable mental ‘task model’ to complete tasks at home, work or study.

Using the Conners Adult ADHD rating scale, adults aged 18–35 were assessed for ADHD symptoms and completed tasks designed to tap verbal and spatial aspects of WM.

Click here to read the briefing paper.

For more information about the research, contact Dr Emili Balaguer-Ballester at eb-ballester@bournemouth.ac.uk or Dr Ben Parris at bparris@bournemouth.ac.uk.
To find out how your research output could be turned into a BU Briefing, contact research@bournemouth.ac.uk.

international

The USA shutdown, following the current budget impasse, has started to affect many federal services across the country, but the effect can also be felt abroad.   I just noted on the PubMed webpages the above warning: “Because of a lapse in government funding, the information on this website may not be up to date, transactions submitted via the website may not be processed, and the agency may not be able to respond to inquiries until appropriations are enacted.”  This delay in funding in the most up-to-date health research database will not have a major effect today (Sunday 21 Jan.) as it will have on hundreds of thousands of federal staff facing unpaid leave and many more people facing interruptions in the provision of basic service across the USA.  It is however a sign of globalisation, with  internal political disputes in the USA affecting people across the globe, including health researchers at Bournemouth University.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH