Padam Simkhada

University of Huddersfield · School of Human and Health Sciences

Introduction The Nepal Family Cohort study uses a life course epidemiological approach to collect comprehensive data on children’s and their parents’ environmental, behavioural and metabolic risk factors. These factors can affect the overall development of children to adulthood and the onset of specific diseases. Among the many risk factors, exposu...

Current methodologies for ensuring AI technology safety and efficacy may be adequate for earlier AI iterations predating generative artificial intelligence (GAI). However, governing clinical GAI may necessitate the development of novel regulatory frameworks. As AI technology advances, researchers, academic institutions, funding bodies, and publishe...

Background: Nepal has a long history of labour migration over the years. Migrants can experience a range of problems in their destination countries, and women are more at risk than men. This paper is the first to explore the problems faced by Nepalese women migrants while working abroad. Methods: This study was conducted among 1,889 women who we...

Introduction Globally dementia is a growing public health problem, with over 135,000 people in Nepal living with dementia. Nepal lacks national and community-based data on dementia prevalence. This study aims to determine the dementia risk in Nepal and assess the effects of age, sex, and geographical location on disease prevalence. It also intends...

Background Dementia is an important public health and geriatric concern for sub-Saharan African countries, including Ghana. Evidence shows that persons living with dementia are often supported and cared for by family caregivers in the community. In the execution of these services to the persons living with dementia, family caregivers are overwhelme...

Background Dementia as a global phenomenon has received significant attention in research due to the adverse effects it has on the daily functioning of its victims. Despite studies conducted in relation to the prevalence and associated factors of dementia in Ghana, not much attention has been paid to the influence of gender. The study, therefore, f...

The past year saw an exponential growth in the use of machine learning using AI (artificial intelligence) and particularly Generative AI (GenAI) such as ChatGPT. The latter has seen a spectacular rise in the public debate and in the mass media. Those not involved in the development of AI were amazed by the capabilities of ChatGPT to produce text eq...

The past decade has seen a significant increase in aging research, driven by scientific breakthroughs and the need created by a growing global aging population. Clinical trials have made remarkable progress in providing insights into the underlying mechanisms of aging and exploring new treatments. However, it is crucial to recognize that human agin...

This qualitative study maps the process of drafting and consulting on Nepal’s mental health legislation from 2006 to 2017. Fourteen people were interviewed, and interviews were analysed thematically. These themes were subsequently interpreted in light of Shiffman and Smith’s policy analysis framework, as the process was found to be at the agenda-se...

Background Dementia is often associated with functional impairments that limit the independence of persons living with dementia (PwD). As such, many PwD often require a higher level of support provided by persons referred to as caregivers. Such caregiving activities tend to strain and stress the caregiver. Nonetheless, Ghana lacks empirical evidenc...

The nursing and midwifery profession needs to stay up to date with the latest developments. In this Viewpoint, we shall be referring to 'nurses' and 'nursing' to mean 'nurses and midwives' and 'nursing and midwifery' respectively. Nurses must continue to update their skills and competences to meet changing future population health needs effectively...

Introduction Anemia remains a prevalent global health issue with varying severity. Intravenous iron supplementation, particularly with ferric carboxymaltose (FCM), has appeared as a possible therapeutic intervention for individuals with moderate to severe anemia. The study aimed to assess the efficacy and safety of ferric carboxymaltose (FCM) in re...

A systematic review was conducted to examine the factors that put women at risk of domestic violence in Nepal. Using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA), PubMed, Cochrane, MEDLINE, CINAHL, and PsycINFO were searched supplemented by searching of the reference list manually. Of the 143 studies identified 24...

Introduction This article offers insights into the process of selecting representative study sites and participants in a longitudinal study in Nepal. As part of the research design process, the selection of representative areas in a large-scale study requires both intellectual and practical considerations. Methods We briefly introduce our study in...

Background Participatory policy analysis (PPA) as a method in health policy and system research remains underexplored. Using our experiences of conducting PPA workshops in Nepal to explore the impact of the country’s move to federalism on its health system, we reflect on the method’s strengths and challenges. We provide an account of the study cont...

The human reference genome assembly has been available for two decades, and advancements in sequencing technology have enabled rapid whole-genome sequencing in single institutes. WGS (whole-genome sequencing) data analysis applications will enable large-scale data analysis on multi-clouds, integrate datasets with a population scale, and ensure the...

International migration shows an increasing trend around the world. The majority of labor migrants, particularly low/semi-skilled migrants from low- and middle-income countries, immigrate to destination countries leaving their family members behind, leading to an increasing number of transnational families. While non-migrating spouses often receive...

Systematic reviews that are out-of-date delay policymaking, create controversy, and can erode trust in research. To avoid this issue, it is preferable to keep summaries of the study evidence. Living evidence is a synthesis approach that provides up-to-date rigorous research evidence summaries to decision-makers. This strategy is particularly useful...

Introduction Nepal’s move to a federal system was a major constitutional and political change, with significant devolution of power and resources from the central government to seven newly created provinces and 753 local governments. Nepal’s health system is in the process of adapting to federalism, which is a challenging, yet potentially rewarding...

There has been a significant improvement in maternal and neonatal health in the last two decades around the world. However, many women still die during pregnancy and childbirth. Nepal is one of the United Nations (UN) Member States which is committed to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to reduce maternal mortality Ratio (MMR) and...

Academic and Industry Partnership Research Grants have a huge potential to improve healthcare in the UK and elsewhere. This potent partnership between academia and business can hasten medical innovation, strengthen patient-centered research, and close the gap between theoretical understanding and real-world implementations. We can make sure that th...

Globally, international and internal labour migration are common phenomena. In LMICs, labour migration, particularly international migration, typically means the men migrate while their wives/partners remain at home to take care of their family. Little attention has been paid to the impact of men’s migration on non-migrating partner’s health. There...

International migration is in an increasing trend globally; internal migration is also very common, particularly in low- and middle- income countries (LMICs). Little attention has been paid to the impact of men’s migration on non-migrating women’s health. Therefore, we undertook a systematic review to examine the impact of men's migration on the he...

The editorial strongly urges Nepal to set up its own Evidence-Based Research Centre to be able to assess high quality published evidence in the context of a resource-poor country such as Nepal.

Aim: This study explores perceptions of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) opportunities among stakeholders in the profession of nursing in Nepal. Design: Qualitative study using focus group discussions (FGDs). Methods: Eight FGDs were conducted in three major cities of Nepal with nursing stakeholders including nurse managers, matrons a...

Fieldwork is often a crucial part of community-based public health studies. However, few researchers write about this, often challenging, process. This paper highlights various occasions where fieldwork in the area of public health, health promotion or community health was more difficult than expected or did not go as planned. Our reflections on wo...

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This is an editorial only.

Background The average prevalence of stunting reported by the Nepal Demographic Health Survey from 2001 to 2016 only reports the prevalence of stunting at the national level and provincial and district level information is missing. Also, no previous study has reported a provincial trend in stunting from 2001 to 2016 in Nepal. This study for the fir...

This article addresses some of the key Public Health approaches around the ongoing federalisation of the state of Nepal and the associated decentralisation processes in its health system. We start by outlining the main roles of the discipline of Public Health and the contribution it can make to the reform process. Then the next section introduces o...

Background: Questionnaires are perhaps the most widely used measuring tools in nursing research, as many studies conducted by nurses focus on understanding the underlying complex factors that are amenable to questionnaires. However, most questionnaires used in nursing research continue to display inadequate evidence of validity under the tradition...

Getting a PhD is the highest possible education qualification which only a small proportion of all students achieve. As a consequence, examining PhD research in the form of a doctoral thesis is specialist work. This paper highlights the different options that are available for PhD examiners. There are four general options: (1) pass, (2) rewrite and...

Background: The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, caused by the pathogenic severe acute respiratory syndrome-2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus, is exponentially spreading across the globe. [1,2,3] Purpose: There is a dearth of published data, the possible susceptibility of pregnancy towards COVID-19 infection or the potential risk of miscarria...

Background The average prevalence of stunting reported by the Nepal Demographic Health Survey from 2001 to 2016 only reports the prevalence of stunting at the national level and provincial and district level information is missing. Also, no previous study has reported a provincial trend in stunting from 2001 to 2016. This study for the first time p...

Background: Globally, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is one of the most common psychiatric illnesses following a disaster. We aimed to evaluate the relationship between the socio-economic and flood exposure factors with PTSD, depression and anxiety among the flood-affected populations in Kerala, India. Methods: A cross-sectional household...

Background International nurses (migrant nurses who are recruited to work in different countries) make essential contributions to global health and care workforces that are experiencing domestic nurse shortages. Global recruitment and migration is increasing, and with growing dependency on international nurses, health and care employers must unders...

Vaccination saves lives and can be an effective strategy for preventing the spread of the COVID-19, but negative attitudes towards vaccines lead to vaccine hesitancy. This study aimed to explore the factors influencing the uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine in the Nepali community in the United Kingdom (UK). This qualitative study included in-depth int...

Writing up visual methodology findings for an academic paper, unlike traditional methods, may feel a little daunting because it involves reporting on non-traditional data. Visual data papers typically follow a qualitative research article structure. The results of findings are often presented as photographs or links to audio and / or video clips wi...

Many traditional scientific journals carry an editorial at the start of each issue or perhaps in most issues. The more recently established online journals seemed to have discontinued this tradition, for example there is no editorial in Sociological Research Online or many of the online journals in the BMC stable, such as BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth...

This paper illustrates the growing importance of mixed-methods research to a wide range of health disciplines ranging from nursing to epidemiology. Mixed-methods approaches requires not only the skills of the individual quantitative and qualitative methods but also a skill set to bring two methods/datasets/findings together in the most appropriate...

Background: The novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, caused by the pathogenic severe acute respiratory syndrome-2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus, is exponentially spreading across the globe. Methods: The current systematic review was performed utilising the following electronic databases PubMed, MEDLINE and EMBASE. We searched for the keyword...

Female labour migration from the global south to the Middle East has increased in recent times. The rights and health of these women are often severely affected during and post migration. The aim of this study was to provide a clearer understanding of the process and context of female labour migration from Nepal. This included reasons for female la...

This paper introduces our international research project ‘The impact of federalisation on Nepal's health system: a longitudinal analysis’, which is examining the effects of changing Nepal’s constitution towards a federal republic on its health system. After a short overview of recent changes in the constitution of Nepal, which in turn affects the o...

Background: Mental health is a difficult public health topic to talk about making it hard for frontline health workers especially countries like in Nepal. General Nurses are providing maternal and mental health care due to lack of midwives and specialist mental health nurses. Aim: This is the first study of this kind to review curricula on mental h...

Background: Continuing professional development for nurses is internationally recognised as a key factor in improving quality of care, career progression, job satisfaction and professionalization. Meeting the global and national challenge of Universal Health Coverage will require a flexible and skilled workforce. Since nurses are the backbone of he...

Across the globe, there can be confusion about the difference between the concepts of health education, health promotion and, often also, public health. This confusion does not limit itself to the individual terms but also to how these terms relate to each other. Some use terms such as health education and health promotion interchangeably; others s...

Background Over the past 20 years, Nepal has seen major improvements in childhood and maternal survival. In 2015, the Nepalese government introduced a new federal political structure. It is unclear how this has affected the health system, and particularly, maternal and child health care. Hence, this study aims to describe and analyse health facilit...

Worldwide there is a growing interest in multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research. This overview paper addresses some of the pitfalls and barriers to being an interdisciplinary researcher. Being involved in interdisciplinary research is not an easy option for an individual discipline expert. It requires individual skills, ability to see bey...

Abstract Introduction Mental health disorder, particularly depression, is one of the leading causes of ‘disease related disability’ in women that both affects the women but has adverse effect on their children. This can have an impact on mothers’ capacity of child care which ultimately increases the risk of infection, malnutrition, impaired growth...

Background: To date, there is no comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the suitability of COVID-19 vaccines for mass immunization. The current systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted to evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of novel COVID-19 vaccine candidates under clinical trial evaluation and present a contempor...

Roles of PhD supervisors are diverse, ranging from providing in-depth discipline-specific Public Health knowledge and technical (e.g., methodological) support to the students, encouraging them towards publications or conference presentations, offering pastoral support for student wellbeing, and finally preparing them to defend their thesis by condu...

Roles of PhD supervisors are diverse, ranging from providing in-depth discipline-specific Public Health knowledge and technical (e.g., methodological) support to the students, encouraging them towards publications or conference presentations, offering pastoral support for student wellbeing, and finally preparing them to defend their thesis by condu...

The novel coronavirus or COVID-19 is a new highly infectious virus affecting a large population across the globe. There is no specific therapeutic drug available against covid-19 hence the most effective public health measures need to strictly be adhered to without delay. Range of issues were reported to fight against COVID-19 in the current health...

The rapid and virulent spread of new corona virus COVID-19 took many by surprise. It is a stark reminder of our constant battle with nature. COVID-19 has a diverse range of clinical presentations, and for individuals, the effects range from being asymptomatic to having viral pneumonitis and death. This editorial outlines (a) the underlying nature o...

COVID-19 which was officially declared pandemic on 11th March 2020 by the World Health Organization (WHO) has resulted in thousands of deaths globally. Since it’s a new disease which was known since December 2019, there are limited evidence available on whether pregnant women are at higher risk of getting Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) than the gen...

The COVID-19 pandemic has exceeded over sixty-five million cases globally. Different approaches are followed to mitigate its impact and reduce its spreading in different countries, but limiting mobility and exposure have been de-facto precautions to reduce transmission. However, a full lockdown cannot be sustained for a prolonged period. An evidenc...

Background: Wasting is a consequence of food insecurity, inappropriate dietary practices, and inadequate caring and feeding practices. The present study assessed association between wasting and household food insecurity among under 5 years old children, along with other socio-demographic characteristics. Methods: This study is a secondary analysis...

Objective To summarise the evidence on health and well-being of Nepalese migrant workers in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and Malaysia. Design Systematic review. Data sources EMBASE, MEDLINE, Scopus and Global Health databases. Eligibility criteria Studies were eligible if they: (1) included Nepalese migrant workers aged 18 or older...

Background Migration to India is a common livelihood strategy for poor people in remote Western Nepal. To date, little research has explored the degree and nature of healthcare access among Nepali migrant workers in India. This study explores the experiences of returnee Nepali migrants with regard to accessing healthcare and the perspectives of sta...

Every year around 1000 Nepali migrant workers die abroad. Every one in three females and one in ten males commit suicide, reflecting a high mental health risk among Nepali migrant workers. This study aims to identify triggers of mental ill-health among Nepali migrant workers and their perceptions on the need of mental health components in the pre-d...

Objectives: To examine the prevalence, determinants, safety perceptions, effectiveness and knowledge of herbal medicines (HMs) and reasons for non-hospital utilisation. Design: Cross-sectional study. Setting: Ekiti state, southwest Nigeria. Participants: A representative sample (n=1600) of adults (18 years or above) currently living in Ekiti...

The Coronavirus disease, also known as Covid-19, which is purported to have started in Wuhan, China, was declared a pandemic on 11th March 2020. Since then the world has come together for the trial and approval of vaccination. Meanwhile, the adopted approach to prevent and slow down the coronavirus is social distancing, handwashing, and use of face...

The Coronavirus disease, also known as Covid-19, which is purported to have started in Wuhan, China, was declared a pandemic on 11th March 2020. In the UK, the government, together with the National Health Service (NHS), have taken various approaches to prevent and slow down the spread of coronavirus. These included imposing a ‘lockdown’ of the cou...

The COVID-19 pandemic has exceeded over ten million cases globallywith no vaccine available yet. Different approaches are followed to mitigate its impact and reduce its spreading in different countries, but limiting mobility and exposure have been de-facto precaution to reduce transmission. However, a full lockdown cannot be sustained for a prolong...

Background: Wasting is a consequence of food insecurity, inappropriate dietary practices, and inadequate caring and feeding practices. The present study assessed association between wasting and household food insecurity among under 5 years old children, along with other socio-demographic characteristics. Methods: This study is a secondary analys...