Impact
The CHH is dedicated to providing relevant research to help inform current trends in health care and welfare reform, while also seeking to bring attention to innovations and ideas that could have considerable impact in modern society.
With the increasing trends for better mental health provision in our society, Dr Rob Ellis was awarded AHRC funding as Principal Investigator for Animating Heritage and Stigma, a collaborative project with Dr Rob Light (Huddersfield) and the New Vic Borderlands Theatre Company. This innovative approach builds upon the successes of two Connected Communities funded programmes, whereby the service users and volunteers were invited to co-design the research and co-produce its output. By doing so, this project uses cultural animation so that participants can co-produce stories using plays, songs and other creative activities. Dr Ellis and his team have met with school groups, mental health and learning disability professionals, and social policy makers in Japan and the USA. The impact of this project is considerable because, by giving participants a voice, it will provide models of learning and understanding that can be replicated so that the reach of the project extends beyond borders, funding and time.
Christine Hallett has acted as historical consultant to the BBC, the Royal College of Nursing, the Florence Nightingale Museum, London, and the National Trust, UK. Christine holds Fellowships of the Royal Society of Medicine, UK, and the Royal Society for the Arts, UK. Her recent book, Nurses of Passchendaele (Pen and Sword Books, 2017) has enabled her to reach audiences beyond academia, and her monograph, Veiled Warriors (Oxford University Press, 2014) will be published in a new, paperback, edition in 2020. Christine is often invited to give public lectures. Among her most recent presentations were events in Washington DC, USA (Smithsonian Institutions); The Hellenic Centre, London; and the National Archives, London. She recently collaborated with academics at the Cinema Department at San Francisco State University, USA, on a short documentary about war-nurse Helen Fairchild (sponsored by the Cemetery Administration of the US Veterans’ Association). As part of her “Distinguished Visitor Award” to New Zealand, she spoke at the Auckland Museum and War Memorial and at the Twentieth Anniversary of the Auckland University School of Nursing.
Recently, Prof Barry Doyle has been involved in an exciting interdisciplinary project with colleagues from Huddersfield, including Dr Jim Reid (Principal Investigator), Sheffield Hallam, Bristol and Tampere (Finland) Universities, the University of Africa (Zambia) and University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University. This project explores the opportunities to adapt the principle of the Finnish Maternity Package (The Baby Box) for use in two low and middle-income countries (Zambia and Vietnam). To date the project has focused on devising low or no-cost interventions including chitenge (wraps) printed with healthcare information and songs and lullabies to provide advice to mothers . A related objective is to develop a historical research project exploring the history of maternity care in Zambia before and after Independence. This pilot project has been generously funded by the University of Huddersfield URF Global Challenges Research Fund Sandpit Events.
Our projects, partnerships and events have seen us regularly participate in national radio, television, news features and coverage, including museum curatorship and heritage promotion. In 2017, Dr Rebecca Gill contributed to the Radio 4 programme ‘Toynbee at War’ while Prof Christine Hallett has been a historical advisor to the BBC, the Royal College of Nursing, the Florence Nightingale Museum and the National Trust. Barry Doyle’s co-authored article with Rosemary Cresswell on Healthcare before the NHS was published by The Conversation to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the health service. It has been accessed more than 35,000 times and led to interviews on Radio Scotland and other BBC stations.