

Reference:
- Regmi, P., Poobalan, A., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E. (2021) PhD supervision in Public Health, Health Prospect: Journal of Public Health 20(1):1-4. https://www.nepjol.info/index.php/HPROSPECT/article/view/32735/28111
Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University
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Research at Bournemouth University is looking at the effectiveness of comic artistry and storytelling in the sharing of public health messaging.
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) the project will catalogue and analyse comic-style public health graphics, specifically those created during the Covid-19 pandemic, and seek to make recommendations on how the comic medium can be effective at delivering public health messaging to help drive behaviour change.
The idea for the research began as Dr Anna Feigenbaum, the lead researcher, and her colleagues Alexandra Alberda and William Proctor shared clever comic-style graphics with one another that had been created and shared on social media about Covid-19. These single, sharable, comic-style graphics blend the artistry and storytelling of comics with the Covid-19 messaging we have seen throughout the pandemic.
Dr Feigenbaum, an Associate Professor within the Faculty of Media and Communication at Bournemouth University, said, “What we saw from these comic graphics was the way that the artistry and storytelling combined to share messages in a more emotive and interesting way. This built on work we were already doing on how public health messaging could utilise this medium to make their own messaging more engaging and even lead to better behavioural outcomes.”
José Blàzquez, the project’s postdoctoral researcher, has started work in collating over 1200 examples of comic-style Covid-19 messaging with the aim of understanding what makes them so compelling, and how this genre of communication could be further used to create what the project’s research illustrator, Alexandra Alberda, calls an “accessible, approachable and relatable” style of messaging when communicating important public health messages. The team aims to build a database that archives these comics, including information about their artistic and storytelling techniques, audience engagement, circulation, and what implications they may have for the sharing of health messaging in the future.
The final outcomes will be shared as a report and an illustrated set of good practice guidelines. Results will also be shared in the team’s edited collection Comics in the Time of COVID-19 and a special journal issue for Comics Grid. It is hoped these guidelines will inform public health communicators, as well as graphic designers and educators.
The team has even created their own Covid-19 web-comics, published by Nightingale on Medium. https://medium.com/nightingale/covid-19-data-literacy-is-for-everyone-46120b58cec9
Dr Feigenbaum continued, “Data comics are on a real upsurge as people look to make sense of the world through data visualisation, and there are some wonderful examples from amateur artists who have been incredibly clever and creative in taking what are, essentially, public health messages, and turning them into emotive comic-style stories.
“These sharable comic graphics are engaging and informed – there is a lot to learn here about the way we make sense of the world and how this genre could help us to see the communication of important messages in a whole new light. What we’re researching now could be seen as best practice in years to come.”
In addition to the main team of Dr. Feigenbaum, Dr. Blàzquez and Alexandra Alberda, this research will be conducted with Co-investigators Dr. Billy Proctor, Dr. Sam Goodman and Professor Julian McDougall, along with advisory partners Public Health Dorset, the Graphic Medicine Collective, Information Literacy Group and Comics Grid.
More information about the project will soon be available at www.covidcomics.org.
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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On October 27th we were honoured to host Dr. Whitney Pirtle, whose ground-breaking work on health inequalities and COVID-19 has helped set the agenda for debate and discussion on the impacts of the pandemic on BAME communities. In her presentation Dr. Pirtle introduced key concepts for better addressing health inequities in both our research and practice. Insights from this talk will be brought forward into our research activity discussion around Health, Science and Data Communications, being coordinated by Dr. Lyle Skains here at BU.
You can listen to Dr. Pirtle’s presentation recorded on zoom.
To learn more about Dr. Pirtle and her work you can visit her website and read a copy of her paper on which this presentation is based.
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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“We are not fighting an epidemic, we are fighting an infodemic.” These are the words of the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) about the misinformation in the corona virus pandemic. A few weeks ago the Prime Minister of Nepal suggested to drink hot water to kill corona virus and to avoid eating ice cream. This attracted a huge criticism from local health experts, but there was no public retraction of this false information. Every time I speak with my mom in Nepal she warns me not to eat meat products and use a lot of lemon and garlic. Also my mother-in-law seems pretty sure that the novel corona virus was intentionally engineered and spread by China to cripple America. Undoubtedly, social media platforms have played a vital role in spreading misinformation (as they do for correct information) at all levels.
Misinformation (inadvertently) and disinformation (advertently) are not a novel threat to public health, especially during the disease outbreaks. People are desperate for information related to probability of getting disease, possible severity, and possible preventive and curative measures. Evidence is equivocal that the misleading information has the tendency of spreading faster than the correct information in social media outlets (1). Studies about the prevalence of misleading information in popular social media platforms (e.g. Youtube, Facebook, Twitter) during Ebola and Zika outbreaks suggest that at least one-quarter of the popular contents (in terms of shares, likes, visits) are misleading (2,3). A study in Nigeria reported that 25% participants had used ‘salt water’ to become safe from Ebola (2). Although developing countries are more affected by misinformation (mainly due to the poor literacy rate and low health awareness level), this poses a huge threat to the developed countries as well. For example, in Denmark, vaccination rates of human papilloma virus (HPV) fell to under 20% in 2005 from over 90% in 2000 because of misleading information on social media and television about the harm of the vaccine (4).
We have to accept that with the advancement of technology and hand-held devices, social media platforms will continue to proliferate and stay as a main source of information for millions. An active presence of ‘gatekeepers’ to monitor and challenge false and misleading information may be the part of the solution. Organisations such as WHO, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have started ‘myth-busters’ websites on corona virus related myths. Leading internet platforms such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok have also intensified initiatives from their sides. For example, notifying about false information (Facebook) and directing to the credible sources during the search (Google, Twitter). More generally organisations such as the BBC have fact-checking website (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/52369688/coronavirus-health-claims-debunked) as has OFCOM (see picture below ‘The most common false information around the coronavirus’). The role of mainstream media to refute misinformation and dispel the truth would also be important. In the UK, we have seen that BBC and other television and print media are actively inviting experts and taking questions from the public regarding queries about Covid-19. Journalists are a powerful weapon in the war against infodemics. Evidence suggests that the negative impact of misinformation can be mitigated from an early counteract and elaboration of facts (5). No single strategy may work and intervention strategies are hugely dependent on the context and socio-demographics of the population. Like my mother and mother-in-law, there are millions of populations who believe in every on Facebook and YouTube and develop perceptions accordingly.
As the world is grappling with the both invisible (Covid-19) and a visible (misinformation) enemy, a collective and stringent measures against the both is the must. From the researcher’s perspectives, identifying the magnitude of misinformation in the popular social media platforms, the most vulnerable groups falling prey to it, impact of misinformation on health-related behaviours, and providing evidence of effective interventions could be the areas for future research.
Dr Nirmal Aryal
Post-doctoral researcher
Faculty of Health and Social Sciences
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The Nepal Journal of Epidemiology published its final edition of 2019 today, on the final day of the year. This issue included an editorial co-authored by BU academics and BU Visiting Faculty. The editorial ‘Vaping and e-cigarettes: A public health warning or a health promotion tool?’ [1] addresses the topical public health question of what to make of vaping. On the one hand, vaping is generally regarded as less harmful than smoking tobacco, but on the other hand, it can be a gateway drug to cigarettes and the process of vaping a range of chemicals it in itself not harmless.
The paper has been written by two academics based in CMMPH (Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health), Dr. Preeti Mahato and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen and FHSS Visiting Faulty members Prof. Padam Simkhada (based at the University of Huddersfield) and Dr. Brijesh Sathian (based at Trauma Surgery,in Hamad General Hospital, Doha, Qatar) in collaboration with e-cigarette user Mr. Cameron van Teijlingen (based in Dorset) and Dr. Mohammad Asim (based at Trauma Surgery,in Hamad General Hospital, Doha, Qatar). The Nepal Journal of Epidemiology is Open Access and therefore freely accessible across the globe.
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Today saw the publication of a new paper from an international research team from the UK, Japan and Nepal. Our research article ‘Assessing knowledge and behavioural changes on maternal and newborn health among mothers following post-earthquake health promotion in Nepal’ has been published in the Open Access journal PLoS ONE [1].
The paper reminds us that natural disasters often disrupt health systems affecting the whole population, but especially vulnerable people such as pregnant women, new mothers and their babies. Despite the global progress in maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) programmes over the years, emergency responses after a disaster are often poor. Post-disaster health promotion could play an important role in improving MNCH outcomes. However, evidence remains limited on the effect of post disaster health promotion activities in low-income countries such as Nepal.
The paper reports on an post-disaster intervention study aimed at women in Nepal following the 2015 earthquake. In total, 364 mothers were recruited in the pre-intervention group and 377 in the post-intervention group. The post-intervention group was more likely to have knowledge of at least three danger signs in pregnancy (AOR [Adjusted Odds Ratio] = 2.96, P<0.001), at least three danger signs in childbirth (AOR = 3.8, P<0.001), and at least five danger signs in newborns (AOR = 1.56, P<0.001) compared to the pre-intervention group. The mothers in the post-intervention group were also more likely to ever attend ANC (AOR = 7.18, P<0.001), attend a minimum of four ANC sessions (AOR = 5.09, P<0.001), and have institutional deliveries (AOR = 2.56, P<0.001).
Religious minority groups were less likely to have knowledge of all danger signs compared to the majority Hindu group. Mothers from poorer households were also less likely to attend four ANC sessions. Mothers with higher education were more likely to have knowledge of all the danger signs. Mothers whose husbands had achieved higher education were also more likely to have knowledge of danger signs and have institutional deliveries. The paper concludes that the health promotion intervention helped the disaster-affected mothers in improving the knowledge and behaviours related to MNCH. However, the authors also comment that vulnerable populations need more support to benefit from such intervention.
Reference:
Dhital R, Silwal RC, Simkhada P, van Teijlingen E, Jimba M (2019) Assessing knowledge and behavioural changes on maternal and newborn health among mothers following post-earthquake health promotion in Nepal. PLoS ONE 14(7): e0220191. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0220191
Over the past decades interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary research has grown in popularity. REF2021 promises that all types of research shall be assessed on a fair and equal basis, including interdisciplinary and collaborative research. New to REF 2021 compared to REF2014 is the Interdisciplinary Research Advisory Panel (IDAP) which has been established to advise the REF team and panel chairs on interdisciplinary research. Furthermore, REF2021 will: (1) appoint at least two members to specifically oversee the assessment of interdisciplinary research in each UoA (Unit of Assessment) to ensure equitable assessment; (2) allow universities to flag-up outputs in the submission system with an ‘interdisciplinary identifier’; and (3) require an discrete section in the environment template on the submitting UoA’s structures to support interdisciplinary research.
Many academics from all disciplines can at some point benefit from working with other scholars from other disciplines. Interdisciplinary research can bring new insights and understanding across disciplinary boundaries. Novel interdisciplinary research can transcend disciplinary boundaries to address sophisticated and so-called wicked problems in society. We would argue that some disciplines are more open to interdisciplinary approaches, and we would argue that the discipline of Public Health as a multi-faceted discipline is probably the most interdisciplinary of all.
Having decades of research experience between us we also recognize that there can be difficulties arising from researchers trained in different individual disciplines trying to work together. We have highlighted some of these issues which interdisciplinary research in Public Health needs to consider and, where necessary, address before they become barriers in an article published this month in Health Prospect [1]. In this Open Access article we remind the reader that doing interdisciplinary research is not an easy option. Interdisciplinary research may involve a mixed-methods approach and could be underpinned by conflicting, and according to some incommensurable, research philosophies.
We argue, for example that in an interdisciplinary team topic specialists face potentially challenging demands on their range of skills and knowledge. For example, sociologists are required to have a broad knowledge at hand to represent the social science perspective in a study of a disease they know little about, designed by clinicians with a health services research outcome in mind. We also suggest that Public Health researchers have to be versed in both qualitative and quantitative methods. Working multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary means that they have to be able to understand the methods of the epidemiologists (e.g. ‘interrupted -time series’ or ‘nested-case control studies’) and those of health service researchers (e.g. ‘double-blind randomised controlled trials’) and have the whole range of qualitative methods at your command to improve the quality of the overall study.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, Dr. Pramod Regmi & Dr. Nirmal Aryal
(all based in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences)
Dr. Pratik Adhikary &Prof. Padam Simkhada
(both BU Visiting Faculty)
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However, doing multidisciplinary research is not without its problems (and barriers). In a paper accepted today we reflect on some of these issues [2]. The co-authors are Bournemouth University’s Dr. Pramod Regmi, Dr. Nirmal Ayral and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, and BU Visiting Professor Padam Simkhada (Public Health Institute, Liverpool John Moores University) and BU graduate Dr. Pratik Adhikary (Green Tara Nepal). We all are Public Health researchers, with very different educational backgrounds and training, reflecting the diversity of and interdisciplinarity in the field. Several of us have a first degree in Education or Health Education, but one has a first degree in Sociology. Whilst four of the five authors have Master degree in Public Health and/or Health Promotion, two have a Master in Education. Most of us have a Ph.D. in Public Health, but again one of us has a Ph.D. in Sociology. Our paper ‘Interdisciplinary Research in Public Health: Not quite straightforward’ has been accepted by the journal Health Prospect [2]. The advantage of this journal, which is part of the NepJOL family is that it is Open Access and hence freely available for anybody working in Public Health across the globe.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH)
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The online interviews with a journalist and podcast producer in the USA was based on our publications around the topic, such as our highly cited BMC Pregnancy& Childbirth paper ‘“Is it realistic?” the portrayal of pregnancy and childbirth in the media ‘ [1] and our 2017 book Midwifery, Childbirth and the Media published by Palgrave Macmillan [2], as well as papers in UK midwifery journals [3-4].
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
References
Congratulations to BU PhD student Dimitrios Vlachos who had his PROSPERO protocol published [1]. Dimitrios working on a project promoting the Mediterranean-style diet in childbearing age, he is supervised across faculties by Dr. Fotini Tsofliou and Prof. Katherine Appleton.
Well done!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH)
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Congratulations to Denyse King, who is currently attending the Future Technologies Conference, FTC 2018; Vancouver, BC; Canada (15-16 November). Her conference paper ‘NoObesity apps – From approach to finished app’ has been published in Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing [1]. Denyse is part of the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMHP) where she is a Lecturer (Academic) in Midwifery based at BU’s campus in Portsmouth ,
Obesity is still a growing public health problem in the UK and many healthcare workers find it challenging to have a discussion with service users about this sensitive topic. They also feel they are not competent to provide the relevant heath advice and are seeking easily accessible, evidence-based, mobile health learning (mHealth). mHealth applications (apps) such as the Professional NoObesity and Family NoObesity (due for release late 2018), have been designed to: support families with making sustainable positive behaviour changes to their health and well-being, ease pressure on practitioners’ overweight and obesity care related workloads, as well as to support the education of professionals, students and service users. This paper describes the process of designing the apps from the inception of the idea, through the stages of research, app builds and testing. The processes of collaborative working to design and develop the apps to meet the needs of both service users and health professionals will also be reflected upon. Childhood obesity is an complex problem and whilst it is recognised that the NoObesity apps cannot singlehandedly resolve this health crisis, it is proposed that they can support families to identify and reduce the barriers that prevent them from living healthier, happier lives.
King D., Rahman E., Potter A., van Teijlingen E. (2019) NoObesity Apps – From Approach to Finished App. In: Arai K., Bhatia R., Kapoor S. (eds) Proceedings of the Future Technologies Conference (FTC) 2018. FTC 2018. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 881. Springer, Cham, pp. 1145-1157.
Congratulations to FHSS academics Dr. Pramod Regmi and Dr. Nirmal Ayral who published an editorial yesterday in a scientific journal in Nepal. The paper ‘Experts warn Nepal Government not to reduce local Public Health spending’ [1] was co-authored by Dr. Bibha Simkhada who has just been offered a post as Lecturer in Nursing in the Department of Nursing & Clinical Sciences, she shall be starting with us on November 1st. Further co-authors include FHSS Visiting Professor Padam Simkhada and Dr . Sujan Marahatta, the journal’s editor. He is based at Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (MMIHS) in Kathmandu, Nepal. Bournemouth University has a long-standing research collaboration with MMIHS.
The editorial warns about the risks of losing the focus on public health and its wider national and global perspective in the recently changed political arena of Nepal. Since 2015 Nepal has moved from a central state to a federal republic, whereby the seven new Provinces have gained much more power and control in the decentralisation process. Moreover the first local elections for two decades in 2017 meant a lot of new and inexperienced local politicians were voted in. Many of these local people had little prior experience of political processes, governing health systems, the notion of priority setting, running sub-committees of elected representatives, political decision-making at local level, etc. The paper argues that Public Health can easily disappear of the radar. The untrained newly elected representatives with no political experience are most likely to be drawn into proposing and supporting popular measures including developing new buildings, black-top roads, hospitals, etc., rather than measures that increase the local or regional budget for teachers, Continuous Professional Development (CPD) for community health workers, and preventative public health measures in general. Buildings and roads are immediate demonstration to voters that politicians have done something useful, reducing maternal mortality by 2.6% or employing two additional health workers doesn’t give politicians neither the same publicity, nor do such policies have immediate signs of success, and hence are unlikely to be vote winners.
The Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences is part of the Open Access publishing of Nepal Journals OnLine (NepJOL) supported by INASP. The editorial also illustrates the kind of work conducted in Bournemouth University’s Integrative Wellbeing Research Centre (iWell).
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH)
Reference:
Simkhada, P., Teijlingen van, E., Simkhada, B., Regmi, P., Aryal, N., Marahatta, S.B. (2018) Experts warn Nepal Government not to reduce local Public Health spending, Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences, 4(1): 1-3.
OER18 conference ‘Virtual Reality: the implications for open educational resources’ presentation by BU staff. A conference presentation by Liz Falconer and Denyse King explored the meaning of open educational resources (OER) in relation to virtual reality (VR) technologies used for education. They argued that VR has been overlooked in the OER debate to date, and that the growth of educational VR platforms will require consideration of the many of the issues that arise from the more traditional concerns of open resources.
Liz and Denyse discussed Virtual Avebury and Virtual Urinalysis as two case examples that illustrate the issues that might arise, sharing their experiences of creating these learning environments in collaboration with university colleagues, commercial developers, and other interested parties such as Health Education England and patient representatives. The audience enthusiastically received their presentation and there were a number of interesting questions asked. The OER18 conference was also a valuable networking experience for Liz and Denyse, who met in person with delegates who had travelled from many different countries including America, South Africa and Brazil.
Following on from this successful experience they are hoping to be invited to present at the Future Technologies Conference in November 2018 to present Denyse’s virtual reality learning environments (VRLE) doctorate project – the Collaborative Immersive Learning Virtual Reality Series (CILVRS).
Well done!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
We know that public health works and thinks long-term. We’ll typically see the population benefits of reducing health risks such as tobacco use, obesity and high alcohol intake in ten or twenty years’ time. But we often forget that preceding public health research into the determinants of ill health and the possible public health solutions is also slow working. Evidence-based public health solutions can be unpopular with voters, politicians or commercial companies (or all). Hence these take time to get accepted by the various stakeholders and make their way into policies.
I was, therefore, glad to see that Scotland won the Supreme Court case today in favour of a minimum price for a unit of alcohol. As we know from the media, the court case took five years. Before that the preparation and drafting of the legislation took years, and some of the original research took place long before that. Together with colleagues at the Health Economic Research Unit at the University of Aberdeen, the University of York and Health Education Board for Scotland, we conducted a literature review on Effective & Cost-Effective Measures to Reduce Alcohol Misuse in Scotland as early as 2001 [1]. Some of the initial research was so long ago it was conducted for the Scottish Executive, before it was even renamed the Scottish Government.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
CMMPH
Reference:
Research started years ago! Ludbrook et al.(2002) Effective & Cost-Effective Measures to Reduce Alcohol Misuse in Scotland: Lit Review, HERU, Univ. of Aberdeen. [ISBN: 0755932803] http://www.gov.scot/Resource/Doc/1124/0052548.pdf
NoObesity
The government’s key priority of reducing childhood obesity through adult education (as announced by Jeremy Hunt in Sept 2015), prompted BU’s Denyse King to write a proposal to Health Education England. Denyse is a Midwifery Lecturer / Public Health Practitioner in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) at Bournemouth University. The proposal outlined her wish to develop a stand-alone mobile learning resource for health workers who care for families of overweight or obese children, and for families who need to identify individual needs to facilitate behavioural changes.
The development of this project pivoted on putting patients and the public in the centre of the process. Patients and the public were engaged through focus groups where insights were gathered to identify the challenges and issues to the problem. A series of online focus groups were undertaken with service users and professionals to understand the key challenges and issues respondents came across when trying to prevent/manage overweight and obesity. Key themes from the focus groups were:
Topic experts were identified and invited to join the project steering group where they provided the governance and steer of the overall development of this project whilst Denyse King wrote the content. The following Apps have been developed as a result and will be available to all as free download in IOS and Android platforms from late September 2017:
Denyse would like to thank Dr. Joanne Newton project proposal support, Felicity Hargreaves and Helen Bingham for approval of the final project proposall. Thanks to all those who contributed to answering the research questions, as well as those who tested and fed back on the prototype, and also to Bournemouth University, University of Southampton, and NHS England for their support of this project.
List of the members of the steering group
Name | Job Title | Organisation | Steering Group Role |
Em Rahman | Head of Public Health Workforce Development Programmes | Health Education England (Wessex) | Steering Group Chair |
Alison Potter | Technology Enhanced Learning Lead (South) | Health Education England (South) | Deputy-Chair |
Dr. Jenny Godson (MBE) | National Lead for Oral Health Improvement | Public Health England | Dental and dental aspects of nutrition |
Prof. Edwin van Teijingen | Professor – Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health | Bournemouth University | Research supervision and education governance |
Dr. Juliet McGrattan | General Practitioner | Cumbria Medical Chambers | GP role governance |
Kate King-Hicks | Health and Wellbeing Programme Lead | Public Health England (South East) | Obesity governance |
Tony Hewett | Intervention Manager and behaviour change specialist | Miltoncross Academy | School staff role governance |
Dr. Jo Walker | Consultant Paediatrician | Portsmouth Hospitals Trust | Consultant doctors role governance |
Dr. Wendy Marsh | Lead Midwife for Safeguarding | Portsmouth Hospitals Trust | Safeguarding governance |
Kate Lees | Consultant in Public Health and Dietitian | Lees & Latouze | Nutrition governance |
Denyse King | Lecturer in Midwifery and Public Health Practitioner | Bournemouth University | Content author and governance |
This week the Oxford Encyclopaedia published our contribution on religious organisations and health promotion [1]. The paper in question ‘Faith Communities and the Potential for Health Promotion’ is co-authored by scholars based in England, Scotland and Canada. This new publication is part of a growing number of publications at Bournemouth University on the contribution of faith communities to public health.
Faith communities often have multiple resources, existing networks and an infrastructure that can be applied to health promotion programmes for their own membership or as an outreach to the wider community. Health programmes in a faith community in high-income countries may include targeted initiatives, ranging from walking groups or weight checks, health events, or health assessments, to diabetes self-management. These activities can be organised by charities and NHS organisation and held at local churches, synagogues or mosques which is referred to as faith-placed health promotion. If the health promotion is part of the ministry of the religious organisation it is referred to as faith-based health promotion.
On top of this encyclopaedia entry, the Open Access journal African Health Sciences [Impact Factor 0.66] accepted our paper in the same field a few weeks ago. This paper ‘Influence of faith-based organisations on HIV prevention strategies in Africa: a systematic review’ formed part of the first author’s M.Sc. in Public Health [2]. Our previous papers reported on a study of faith-based and faith-placed health promotion in and around Dundee [3-4].
Professor Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Prenatal Health
References