Tagged / Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

COST Actions – supporting high-risk, innovative and emerging research themes

Funding opportunities

COST Actions are a flexible, fast, effective and efficient networking instrument for researchers, engineers and scholars to cooperate and coordinate nationally funded research activities. COST Actions allow European researchers to jointly develop their own ideas in any science and technology field. COST Actions are bottom-up  science and technology networks, open to researchers and stakeholders  with a duration of four years. They are active through a range of  networking tools , such as workshops, conferences, training schools, short-term scientific missions (STSMs), and dissemination activities.  COST does not fund research itself.

COST prides in its support for high-risk, innovative and emerging research themes. Importantly, COST does not set any research priorities. cost

Currently on the COST website is a report on Collecting research data to counter femicide worldwide

Femicide across Europe is the first pan-European research network investigating the causes and risk factors of a phenomenon killing thousands of women every year, worldwide.

Femicide refers to the killing of women and girls because of their gender. European researchers studying the  cultural, societal and psychological   causes  and  risks factors  behind femicide set up the network to fight the phenomenon through advocacy and research. One idea is to create a  European Femicide Observatory  gathering and comparing data from each of the 30 countries involved, of which half are Inclusiveness Target Countries . The goal is to come up with  new guidelines  and shape new EU public policies countering killings.

Specialists have been studying quantitative and qualitative data and ways to reduce discrepancies in country records. Such discrepancies are often due to the different definitions of femicide, which is sometimes seen as gender-based violence.

“When our COST Action was first proposed, the term femicide was not widely used. Everyone knew of homicide, but few had given thought to the fact that some women, particularly those involved in intimate relationships, were murdered simply because they were women. Today, two years within the COST Action, ‘femicide’ has become a buzzword, Action Chair Dr Shalva Weil explains.“

Network members have also been advocating for a more straightforward approach to lowering femicide rates in Europe. They have already addressed the Portuguese Parliament and the Parliament of Aragon in Spain. The network also took part in two United Nations sessions in Bangkok (November 2014) and New York (October 2015).

By participating in the network’s training schools and scientific exchanges, young researchers are also given the chance to better understand the phenomenon EU-wide. One outstanding result of the Action’s work is a  comparison of national statistics from 10 European countries .

The Action’s next annual meeting will take place in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in May 2016.

Why not take a look at the COST Action database to see if there is a current Action relating to your research? You can then consider joining an existing Action or submitting your own proposal.

Click on the tag COST Action (below) to see other BU posts on this topic, including  Edwin van Teijlingen’s report on his recent publication and his experience of attending a COST Action Training School.

If you are interested in applying for COST, please contact Emily Cieciura, Research Facilitator: EU & International of you Faculty’s Funding Development Officer.

Suicide in India: Modelling data

international, Publishing

The latest BU research publication used a modelling approach to suicide in India [1].  The paper ‘Time Trend of the Suicide Incidence in India: a Statistical Modelling’ is now online and freely available as it was published in an Open Access journal.  The first author of this paper is BU Visiting Faculty Dr. Brijesh Sathian.  The modelling resulted in some useful predictions of future risk of suicide at a population level, see for example: 10.12691.ajphr-3-5A-17.fig_1

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Reference:

Sathian, B. , De, A. , Teijlingen, E. V. , Simkhada, P. et al. (2015). Time Trend of the Suicide Incidence in India: a Statistical Modelling. American Journal of Public Health Research, 3(5A), 80-87.  Online at:  http://pubs.sciepub.com/ajphr/3/5A/17/

Successful ESRC Festival of Social Sciences in EBC today

Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer, PG research, student research, Women's Academic Network

Slide1Slide2This afternoon Prof. Jonathan Parker introduced the final of three session in the Executive Business Centre under the title ‘Enhancing social life through global social research: Part 3. Social science research in diverse communities’.  This session was well attended and coveredwas a wide-range of interesting social science research topics.

Professor of Sociology Ann Brooks started off the session with her presentation on ‘Emotional labour and social change.’   She was followed by Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen who gave an overview of research in Nepal.  FHSS PhD student Andy Harding introduced his thesis research into ‘Information provision and housing choices for older people.’  At this point Prof. Brooks gave her second talk on ‘Risk and the crisis of authenticity in cities’. Social Anthropologist Dr. Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers spoke about her research on ‘Reconciliation and engaged ethnography in the Balkans.’  Dr. Hyun-Joo Lim highlighted her study on ‘North Korean defectors in the UK’ and the session was completed by Dr. Mastoureh Fathi who presented her analysis of parenting books for Muslim parents in the UK.

ESRC banner (2)

This was the last day of the ESRC Festival of Social Science at which Bournemouth University was extremely well presented!

 

Thank you to my colleagues for organising this and the ESRC for funding the events!

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

(medical sociologist)

BU PhD student Sheetal Sharma’s publication in MIDWIFERY

international, open access, Publishing, writing

Sheetal Sharma Midw 2030

 

Ms. Sheetal Sharma, PhD student in FHSS, published her latest paper in Midwifery (Elsevier) this week. This latest paper ‘Midwifery2030, a woman’s Pathway to health: What does it mean?’ is co-authored by a number of illustious midwifery researchers. The 2014 State of the World’s Midwifery report included a new framework for the provision of womancentred sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn and adolescent health care, known as the Midwifery2030 Pathway. The Pathway was designed to apply in all settings (high-, middle- and low income countries, and in any type of health system). This paper describes the process of developing the Midwifery2030 Pathway and explain the meaning of its different components, with a view to assisting countries with its implementation.

Sheetal is currently in her final year of a PhD on the evaluation of the impact of a maternity care intervention in Nepal.

Sheeta;

Sheetal Sharma

Congratulations!!

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, Dr. Catherine Angell & Prof. Vanora Hundley (all CMMPH)

&

Visiting Faculty Prof. Padam Simkhada (based at Liverpool John Moores University).

 

Reference:

ten Hoope-Bender, P. Lopes, S., Nove, A., Michel-Schuldt, M.,  Moyo, NT, Bokosi, M., Codjia, L.,  Sharma, S., Homer, CSE. (2015) Midwifery2013, a woman’s Pathway to health: What does it mean? Midwifery

 

Congratulations new publication Dr. Pramod Regmi in FHSS

Publishing

Asia Pac J PH 2015Asian-Pacific Journal of Public Health published an editorial with Dr. Pramod Regmi as its first author.  The editorial ‘Importance of Health and Social Care Research into Gender and Sexual Minority Populations in Nepal.’  The authors argue that despite progressive legislative developments and increased visibility of sexual and gender minority populations in the general population, mass media often report that this population face a wide range of discrimination and inequalities. LGBT (lesbian, gay, and bisexual, and transgender) populations have not been considered as priority research populations in Nepal.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Reference:

Regmi, R.R., van Teijlingen, E.  Importance of Health and Social Care Research into Gender and Sexual Minority Populations in Nepal

Asia Pac J Public Health 2015 27: 806–808,

New CMMPH paper published from COST collaboration

open access, Publishing

BMC Health Serv Res
This week saw publication of a new CMMPH paper in BMC Health Services Research.  This methodological paper ‘Assessing the performance of maternity care in Europe: a critical exploration of tools and indicators‘ is a collaboration between several European maternity-care researchers based in Spain (Ramón Escuriet, Fatima Leon-Larios), Belgium (Katrien Beeckman), Northern Ireland (Marlene Sinclair), the UK (Lucy Firth, Edwin van Teijlingen), Switzerland ( Christine Loytved, Ans Luyben) and Portugal (Joanna White).  Dr. Ans Luyben is also Visiting Faculty in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences at Bournemouth University.  The underlying work was supported by the European Union through a COST Action called Childbirth Cultures, Concerns, and Consequences headed by Prof. Soo Downe at the University of Central Lancashire.  COST is seen by the EU as an important tool in building and supporting the European Research Area (ERA).

Cost ActionThis paper critically reviews published tools and indicators currently used to measure maternity care performance within Europe, focusing particularly on whether and how current approaches enable systematic appraisal of processes of minimal (or non-) intervention in support of physiological or “normal birth”.

The authors conclude: “The review identified an emphasis on technical aspects of maternity, particularly intrapartum care in Europe, rather than a consideration of the systematic or comprehensive measurement of care processes contributing to non-intervention and physiological (normal) birth. It was also found that the links between care processes and outcomes related to a normal mode of birth are not being measured.”

 

Professor Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Open Access publishing does not have to be expensive!

BRIAN, open access, Publishing, Research Ethics, writing

Nepal J Epid Open AccessAs it is Open Access Week I would like to clarify one of the Open Access publishing myths.  One of the common replies I receive from academics colleagues when raising Open Access publishing is that it is (too) expensive. This is, of course, true for many academic journals, but not all are expensive.  Some don’t even charge a processing fee at all.  Infamously, The Lancet Global Health charges an article processing fee of US $4750 upon acceptance of submitted research articles.  More moderately priced scientific journals still charge anything up to about £1,500 per article.

Open-Access-logoAcademic publishing has been big business for decades, and Open Access has rapidly become part of that business.  While traditional book and magazine publishers struggle to stay afloat, research publishing houses have typical profit margins of nearly 40%, according CBCNEWS who quote Vincent Larivière from the University of Montreal’s School of Library & Information Science.

At the same time we see a sharp increase in so-called Predatory Publishers who have set up business for the sole reason to make money from Open Access publishing.  They have not established or taken over academic journal for the greater good of the discipline or the dissemination of research findings to the widest possible audience.  Unscrupulous publishers jump on the Open-Access bandwagon BU librarian Jean Harris recently shared an interesting article about Predatory Publishers (click here to read this!).

J Asian MidwHowever, there are other format of Open Access. One of our more recent papers on research ethics was published in the Nepal Journal of Epidemiology which is an online Open Access journal that does not charge authors for publishing!  Also the Journal of Asian Midwives, where FHSS PhD student Preeti Mahato recently had her article accepted, is hosted in Pakistan by Aga Khan University through its institutional repository eCommons.  Publishing in this Open Access online journal is also free of charge.  In other words, Open Access publishing does not have to be expensive!

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

Management of male obesity: The qualitative evidence (BMJ Open)

open access, Publishing

BMJ Open 2015Yesterday BMJ Open published our latest article on the weight management in obese men, under the title A qualitative evidence synthesis on the management of male obesity.[1]  To the best of our knowledge, this is the first synthesis of qualitative studies investigating men’s perceptions and experiences of weight management services.  The interdisciplinary study was conducted between the three research centres at the University of Aberdeen, namely the Health Services Research Unit (HSRU), the Health Economics Research Unit (HERU) and the Rowett Institute of Health & Nutrition, the University of Stirling’s NMAHP Research Unit, the University of Edinburgh’s Scottish Collaboration for Public Health Research & Policy (SCPHRP) and Bournemouth University.

Studies published between 1990 and 2012 reporting qualitative research with obese men, or obese men in contrast to obese women and lifestyle or drug weight management were included. The studies included men aged 16 years or over, with no upper age limit, with a mean or median body mass index of 30 kg/m2 in all settings. In total 22 studies were identified.

Health concerns and the perception that certain programmes had ‘worked’ for other men were the key factors that motivated men to engage with weight management programmes. Barriers to engagement and adherence with programmes included: men not problematizing their weight until labelled ‘obese’; a lack of support for new food choices by friends and family, and reluctance to undertake extreme dieting. Retaining some autonomy over what is eaten; flexibility about treats and alcohol, and a focus on physical activity were attractive features of programmes. Group interventions, humour and social support facilitated attendance and adherence. Men were motivated to attend programmes in settings that were convenient, non-threatening and congruent with their masculine identities, but men were seldom involved in programme design.

The paper concluded that men’s perspectives and preferences within the wider context of family, work and pleasure should be sought when designing weight management services. Qualitative research is needed with men to inform all aspects of intervention design, including the setting, optimal recruitment processes and strategies to minimise attrition.  This paper grew out of the larger ROMEO study which was published in our full HTA (Health Technology Assessment) report, which is also freely available on line, click here! [2]

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

Reference:

  1. Archibald, D., Douglas, F., Hoddinott, P., van Teijlingen, E., Stewart, F., Robertson, C., Boyers, D., Avenell, A. (2015) A qualitative evidence synthesis on the management of male obesity. BMJ Open 5: e008372. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2015-008372 http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/10/e008372.full.pdf+html
  2. Robertson, C., Archibald, D., Avenell, A., Douglas, F., Hoddinott, P., van Teijlingen, E., Boyers, D., Stewart, F., Boachie, C., Fioratou, E., Wilkins, D., Street, T., Carroll, P., Fowler, C. (2014) Systematic reviews of & integrated report on the quantitative, qualitative & economic evidence base for the management of obesity in men. Health Technology Assessment 18(35): 1-424.  http://www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/118180/FullReport-hta18350.pdf

BU very well represented in this year’s ERCS Festival!

Awarded & submitted bids, Festival of Learning, Fusion, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer, PG research, Publishing

escrThe ESRC website lists its Festival events for 2015 and amongst the interetsing events is a record number of BU events! The full list can be found on the ESRC webpages, click here!

Pathways to impact: part deux!

7 November 2015 | Bournemouth | Event

Festival of Social Science

This event aims to engage participants who attended a previous one-day ESRC Festival of Science event which took place in 2012 entitled, “Pathways to Impact: ageing, diversity, connectivity and community”.

Creatively mapping the coast

9 November 2015 | Bournemouth| Event

Festival of Social Science

Children will have the chance to take part in a creative mapping exercise using coastal artefacts and pictures to create their own sensory and emotional maps of the topic, starting with the question of ‘how does it make me feel to be here?’

Safeguarding vulnerable adults from financial scamming

10 November 2015 | Bournemouth | Event

Festival of Social Science

Older people are increasingly at risk of falling victim to financial scams that target vulnerable people, including mass marketing fraud via post, telephone or email and doorstep fraud.

This event will give practitioners, agencies and members of the public, the opportunity to come together to learn more about the threats posed.

Church as place: ethnography

11 November 2015 | Bournemouth | Event

Festival of Social Science

This event asked the question:

  • what meanings of place and space are constructed by secular or non-specifically religious and religious visiting of church buildings?

Creativity and dementia: making a connection

11 November 2015 | Poole | Event

Festival of Social Science

Bournemouth University Dementia Institute (BUDI) will bring dementia awareness to life through running creative activities including a performance from the BUDI Orchestra – made up of people affected by dementia and musicians – poetry and technology such as IPads and Nintendo Wii.

Child deaths and poverty: disadvantaged British children!

12 November 2015 | Bournemouth | Event

Festival of Social Science

Are British children disadvantaged compared to children in other Western countries? An analysis of data from global sources compares the standards of mortality, poverty and health funding for children and adults in Britain vs. those in 20 other Western countries.

Copyright reform: the implications one year on

12 November 2015 | Bournemouth | Event

Festival of Social Science

One year ago, in October 2014, the UK Government introduced major changes to the Copyright Law with the aim of promoting innovation and creativity. These included a range of exceptions and limitations benefiting users as well as educational and cultural institutions.

Enhancing social life through global social research – event 1

12 November 2015 | Bournemouth | Event

Festival of Social Science

These exhibitions run over the course of three days presenting a showcase of Bournemouth University research projects demonstrating our research impacts on social and community wellbeing and our concern for diverse groups and work with a wide variety of stakeholders.

Fused all ways: transdisciplinary insider research

12 November 2015 | Poole | Event

Festival of Social Science

A group of researchers from Bournemouth University are researching the lived experience of students entering higher education from and in ‘non traditional’ contexts. By bringing together research, educational practice and students as research co-creators, a unique lens is created through which to observe the question.

Increasing fruit and vegetable intakes: Why? How? – Event 3

12 November 2015 | Bournemouth | Event

Festival of Social Science

The 5-a-day campaign went global after a recommendation from the World Health Organisation that we should all be eating a least 400g of fruit and vegetables per day. Variations on this message are repeated in countries all across the world. But does the message cause more confusion than good?

Enhancing social life through global social research – event 2

13 November 2015 | Bournemouth | Event

Festival of Social Science

These exhibitions run over the course of three days presenting a showcase of Bournemouth University research projects demonstrating our research impacts on social and community wellbeing and our concern for diverse groups and work with a wide variety of stakeholders.

Enhancing social life through global social research – event 3

14 November 2015 | Bournemouth | Event

Festival of Social Science

These exhibitions run over the course of three days presenting a showcase of Bournemouth University research projects demonstrating our research impacts on social and community wellbeing and our concern for diverse groups and work with a wide variety of stakeholders.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Paper ahead of its time?

Publishing

Presentation1Sometimes my co-authors and I wonder why a particular paper get more cited after a few years of publication.  Is is because the paper and the research were are ahead of their time?  Or is there simply a lag time between publication and other researchers publishing in the field finding your paper (or stumbling upon it perhaps)?

Take for example the following paper published in 2006 when I was still based in the Department of Public Health at the University of Aberdeen: Promoting physical activity in primary care settings: Health visitors’ and practice nurses’ views and experiences in  the Journal of Advanced Nursing.[1]

 

Published in 2006 our paper was first cited in Scopus in 2007 (just once),three time in the following year (2008), five times in 2009 and then just a few times per year until this year. In 2015 we have six citations already and the year is not even finished.

We really wonder what lies behind that increased popularity of this 2006 paper.

citations JAN

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

Reference:

  1. Douglas, F., van Teijlingen E.R., Torrance, N., Fearn, P., Kerr, A., Meloni, S. (2006) Promoting physical activity in primary care settings: Health visitors’ and practice nurses’ views and experiences Journal of Advanced Nursing, 55(2): 159-168.