Tagged / MIHERC

Digital Health and AI: Paving the Way for Health Equity in Maternal and Infant Care

The long awaited 10-year health plan for England emphasises the use of digital technologies and the aspiration to “make the NHS the most AI-enabled health system in the world”. This requires expertise in artificial intelligence and data science, but interdisciplinary collaboration is also essential if we are to make this a reality.

The Maternal and Infant Health Equity Research Centre (MIHERC) aims to do this by bringing together experts in maternal health, behavioural science, AI and digital health to help drive innovative solutions through co-production and real partnership, ensuring better outcomes for all women and babies. MIHERC is led by Professor Hora Soltani at Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) in collaboration with key partners including Bournemouth University (BU), the City of Doncaster Council and South Yorkshire Digital Health Hub.

Alongside Professor Vanora Hundley, who has been appointed as a Capacity Training and Development Lead, Professor Huseyin Dogan and Prof Alessandro Di Nuovo from MIHERC will be co-leading the cross-cutting workstream titled “digital, data, monitoring, evaluation and implementation science” as part of the NIHR Maternity Disparities consortium. This workstreams aims

– to identify and test trusted, reliable AI technologies for deployment by the NHS to help reduce disparities;

– to develop and refine equity monitoring, real-world evaluation and implementation science methods for use in maternity disparities research, with a focus on enhancing their robustness and practical application;

– to embed advanced analytic and digital tools and implementation frameworks into maternity disparities research to improve the rigor and impact of studies on equity; and

– to build a community of practice within and external to consortium to develop analytical, methodological, and implementation science capacity.

The BU key academics are: Huseyin Dogan, Vanora Hundley, Edwin van Teijlingen, and Deniz Çetinkaya. Please do get in touch with the MIHERC team for further information.

Pioneering Research to Tackle Maternity Disparities: BU Academics Lead Major NIHR Initiative

Women's Academic Network

We’re thrilled to announce that Bournemouth University (BU) is at the forefront of a significant national effort to address inequalities in maternity outcomes. Two distinguished professors from across our faculties, Professor Huseyin Dogan and Professor Vanora Hundley, have been appointed to lead crucial workstreams within the prestigious National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Maternity Disparities project over the next five years.

This vital initiative aims to make a tangible difference in the lives of mothers and babies by tackling the complex factors that contribute to disparities in maternity care and outcomes.

Professor Huseyin Dogan will co-lead the Digital, data, monitoring, evaluation and implementation science workstream. His expertise will be instrumental in leveraging innovative digital tools and robust data analysis to better understand and address existing inequalities. This workstream will focus on developing effective strategies for monitoring progress and ensuring that evidence-based interventions are successfully implemented in practice. Prof Dogan has also played a pivotal role in curriculum innovation at BU, co-founding several innovative MSc programs, including the UK’s first MSc Digital Health.

Professor Vanora Hundley has been appointed as a Capacity Training and Development Lead. As part of the Capacity Development Group, she will be responsible for developing an ambitious programme to inspire, develop and support the next generation of maternity disparities researchers. Vanora will also oversee the capacity development programme within the MIHERC collaboration. She is an experienced mentor for career young researchers and has received international recognition for her work in mentoring clinical academics: Sigma Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame (2020) and a European Recognition award (2023).

Adding further strength to this ambitious project, Professor Edwin van Teijlingen and Dr Deniz Cetinkaya will also be integral members of the team, providing their expertise and support over the next five years.

This significant involvement in the NIHR Maternity Disparities project is also anticipated to bring substantial research funding to BU, with projections estimating over one million pounds will be secured over the next five years through their respective roles and internal consortium project proposals. This investment will further fuel their research and impact in this critical area.

In a proactive move to lay the groundwork for the NIHR project, the BU team has collaborated with Sheffield Hallam University to establish the Maternal & Infant Health Equity Research Centre (MIHERC). This dedicated centre will serve as a hub for cutting-edge research, collaboration, and knowledge sharing in maternal and infant health equity. We encourage you to explore the centre’s website for more information: https://miherc.org/.

MIHERC is already actively engaged in shaping the discourse around these critical issues. The team has commenced the organisation and chairing of impactful events, including the upcoming Artificial Intelligence for Maternity and Women’s Health and Wellbeing session at the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare (AIiH 2025). Further details about this exciting session can be found here: https://aiih.cc/maternity-and-women-health-wellbeing/.

Locally, the project will benefit from strong collaborations within Dorset. The team is working closely with NHS Dorset and Dorset Women CIC to address inequalities in women’s health.

This collaborative effort has already seen the launch of a valuable Women’s Health resource this month, demonstrating the immediate impact of this work.

The BU team is deeply committed to this crucial research and will continue to keep the wider community informed of their progress and key milestones over the next five years. This initiative represents a significant step forward in our collective efforts to ensure equitable and positive maternity experiences for all. Stay tuned for further updates!

The whole team at Bournemouth University 08.01.25

The whole team at Bournemouth University 08.01.25

Bournemouth University eHealth paper cited 40 times!

open access, Publishing, writing

Yesterday, ResearchGate alerted us that the paper ‘Midwives’ views towards women using mHealth and eHealth to self-monitor their pregnancy: A systematic review of the literature’ [1] had reached 40 citations!  This paper has four Bournemouth University (BU) authors and one author, Prof. Gary Smith, who was FHSS Visiting Professor at the time of publication.  This literature review, published in 2020, sought midwives’ perspectives on women self-monitoring their pregnancy using eHealth and mHealth.

The paper fund that  midwives generally held ambivalent views towards the use of eHealth and mHealth technologies in antenatal care. They acknowledged the potential benefits of such technologies, such as their ability to modernise antenatal care and to help women make more informed decisions about their pregnancy. However, midwives were quick to point out the risks and limitations of these, such as the accuracy of conveyed information, and negative impacts on the patient-professional relationship.

This paper will contribute to our recently awarded NIHR funding to tackle inequalities in UK maternal healthcare as part of the NIHR Challenge Call: Maternity Disparities Consortium.  Profs Vanora Hundley and Edwin van Teijlingen from the Centre for Midwifery and Women’s Health, and Prof. Huseyin Dogan and Dr. Deniz Cetinkaya from the Department of Computing and Informatics collaborate in MIHERC (Maternal & Infant Health Equity Research Centre).   MIHERC is led by Prof. Hora Soltani at Sheffield Hallam University, and it is a partnership with Bournemouth University, the City of Doncaster Council and South Yorkshire Digital Health Hub as well as several charities and voluntary organisations.  Prof. Dogan has recently been appointed  the co-lead for the “Digital, data, monitoring, evaluation and implementation science” work stream of the NIHR Maternity Disparities consortium.

 

Reference:

  1. Vickery, M., van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V., Smith, G. B., Way, S., 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(Sept.), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.18332/ejm/126625