News from the Centre for Public Health and Wellbeing

2021

Guidance for Accessible Online Public Events

Associate Professor Andy Gibson, with Dr Tillie Curran and Sophie Savage, have produced an output of 'Disability Rights and Robotics; co-designing futures' project that involved people with lived experience of disability, students and academics in the College of Health, Science and Society and the College of Arts, Technology and Environment at UWE Bristol. This guidance was commissioned by the two colleges and was developed with the Social Work Hub Group and in consultation with the Centre for Deaf and Hard of Hearing People in Bristol. View the guidance (PDF).

Specialist Public Health Training in Health Protection 

Associate Professor Paul Pilkington and Professor Julie Mytton have been successful in being awarded the Health Education England tender for Specialist Public Health Training in Health Protection in the north of the region. The funding of £20,000 is for the provision of two training courses in Health Protection/Security for Specialists in Public Health. The course is intended for those who are involved in the control of infectious, environmental and/or radiological hazards. This includes those working in health protection, public health, environmental health and infection control. It is anticipated that each course will run over four to five days and that there will be 40 Health Education England funded candidates on each course. The course contributes to the development of the health protection competencies required for the UK Public Health Register.

Research funding secured from NIHR Social Care Award

Associate Professor Matthew Jones is a Co-Investigator on Connecting Evidence with Decision Making: ConnectED, a £1.7+ million, collaborative, challenge-based research programme with University of Bristol (Principal Investigator: Professor Geraldine McDonald). ConnectED aims to help decision-makers in Adult Social Care make better decisions by growing their ability to use research (July 2021 to December 2024). It includes research partners, Sirona Health Care, Dhek Bhal and BNSSG local authorities. ConnectED is one of five such projects in England  funded by NIHR Award ID: NIHR131345. It builds on the Bristol Ageing Better research. Mat Jones is funded by Big Lottery.

BSc Public Health/Public Health Practitioner Degree Apprenticeship 

Led by Associate Professor Paul Pilkington, the BSc Public Health/Public Health Practitioner Degree Apprenticeship will commence in September 2021 pending the validation event on 23 May 2021. A successful webinar with employers and those interested in enrolling onto the degree, with over fifty attendees was held on 29 April. UWE Bristol is the provider of choice in the South West and significant numbers are predicted.

UK Festival of Co-Production Learning

Associate Professor Matthew Jones was an invited speaker and panellist, accompanied by Bristol Ageing Better Community Researchers, at two national co-production research events on 25 February 2021 and 11 May 2021 at the UK Festival of Co-Production Learning with Ageing Better, to disseminate findings on mainstreaming co-research with older people. The team included Dr Jo White and Amy Beardmore.  

New knowledge exchange partnership

A number of visiting titles were approved at the University’s Research Progression Panel on 15 April 2020. Located in the Centre for Public Health and Wellbeing, the School of Health and Social Wellbeing, Population Health - Knowledge Exchange Partnership will create opportunities for curricula development, staff exchanges, lectures and events across the communities of practice. From September 2021, UWE Bristol will provide innovative public health curricula from apprenticeship to postgraduate research level, presenting a significant opportunity to innovate for new markets in the population health space.

Week-long dissemination events in Nepal

A week of dissemination and impact assessment workshops were held in Makwanpur District (Nepal) to present findings from five research studies conducted through the Nepal Injury Research Centre programme. The events were delivered by our local research partners between 29 March and 2 April 2021. Ninety community members and stakeholders participated over five events including local Mayors, local government officials, hospital managers, healthcare workers and health post leads.   

Professor Julie Mytton, Dr Puspa Raj Pant, Dr Santosh Bhatta, Amrit Banstola, Associate Professor Toity Deave and Gary Smart, together with six research colleagues from the Nepal Injury Research Centre, presented a total of 12 abstracts at the Safety 2022 Virtual Preconference Global Injury Prevention Showcase, 22 to 26 March 2021.

Keynote speaker invitation at the Global Injury Prevention Showcase

Dr Puspa Raj Pant has been invited to be a Keynote Speaker at a Global Injury Prevention Showcase to be held online from 22 to 24 March 2021. Dr Pant will talk on "The importance of good data for awareness and national policy/programme development on injury prevention: Use the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) data in Nepal." This Virtual Showcase is the pre-conference engagement of the 14th World Conference on Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion (World Safety 2022) which is planned to be held in Adelaide, Australia. The event is organised by the Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). Dr Pant is funded through the NIHR Global Health Research Group on Nepal Injury Research. 

New publication on research funding priorities for European social sciences and humanities researchers

Associate Professor Matthew Jones co-authored the AHRC-funded collaborative study with Nottingham University and the Finnish Environment Institute using the ‘Sutherland Method’ to identify research funding priorities for European social sciences and humanities researchers. The article was published earlier this year:

Morris, C., Kaljonen, M., Aavik, K., Balázs, B., Cole, M., Coles, B., Efstathiu, S., Jones M, Giraud, E.H. and Goodman, M., (2021) Priorities for social science and humanities research on the challenges of moving beyond animal-based food systems. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 8(1), pp.1-12.

Re-imagining Environments for Connection and Engagement project

Dr Richard Kimberlee is working in partnership with six EU universities and additional partners in the USA and Ecuador on a 5.1 million euro EU Horizons 2020 grant ('Re-imagining Environments for Connection and Engagement: Testing Actions for Social Prescribing in Natural Spaces'), April 2021-24. The project will invest in six green social prescribing initiatives in urban settings and develop community actions for improving urban health and wellbeing using social prescribing models .

Health Systems Research online symposium

Professor Julie Mytton and Professor Sunil Kumar Joshi (Kathmandu Medical College and UWE Bristol Visiting Professor) presented on their study funded by the NIHR Health Systems and Policy Research Development Award scheme at the Health Systems Research online symposium on 13 January 2021.

Child injury prevention booklet adopted as a Unicef parenting resource

Unicef Nepal has adapted a 'child injury prevention booklet,' developed by Research Fellow, Dr Puspa Raj Pant, for a parenting education website. Unicef Nepal promotes parenting education through the provision of online resource materials in the Nepali language. As part of his post-doctoral research in 2014, Dr Pant prepared the child injury prevention booklet for parents and carers while working with female community health volunteers in the Makwanpur district of Nepal. This research project was funded by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA). Dr Pant said, "I am delighted to have been spotted by the agency that drives change for children and young people, and that they have acknowledged my contribution by identifying and including the booklet as a useful resource for child injury prevention. I consider it as an impact of my work done in the past." View the adapted child injury prevention booklet (PDF). 

Key staff appointments

Professor Julie Mytton has been appointed Visiting Professor at Kathmandu Medical College, Nepal.

Dr Richard Kimberlee has been appointed as a member of the Academic Partners Consortium of ten advisors to deliver the National Academy for Social Prescribing four pillars of social prescribing on green, physical activity, arts and culture and money and finance, from January 2021 to August 2021.