Vanora Hundley BN, RGN, RM, MSc, PhD, FHEA
Vanora is Professor of Midwifery (previously Deputy Dean for Research and Professional Practice and Acting Executive Dean) in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences. She is an internationally recognised midwifery researcher, having written over 100 peer-reviewed research articles on pregnancy, maternity care and midwifery. She has led a range of studies in the reproductive health field both in the UK and internationally. She conducted one of the first randomised controlled trials of midwife-led care. More recent work has examined the role of labour practices and their impact on maternal and neonatal outcomes, both in low income and high income countries. She is a member of the International Early Labour Research Group.
Vanora has worked as a nurse and midwife in UK, Hungary and the USA. She is an adviser to the World Health Organization and serves on a number of international research groups. She is currently Reproductive Health and Childbirth Specialty Lead for CRN Wessex and a mentor in the UK’s NIHR Academy. Vanora is passionate about research utilisation and believes that researchers must work closely with colleagues in both practice and education to ensure that research is relevant and that it is utilised. Vanora developed Bournemouth University’s innovative Clinical Academic Doctoral Programme.
Vanora’s research methods expertise is in program evaluation, questionnaire surveys and in measuring consumer preferences for models of care.

Research

My current research studies / areas of interest include:
(1) Promoting midwifery education in Nepal; Training the trainer and facilitating change. This project, funded by the German Development Agency and led by Prof Edwin van Teijlingen, involves colleagues in the National Academy of Medical Sciences in Nepal and Dalarna University in Sweden.
(2) Media, culture and health seeking behaviour: can the relationship be changed? This area of work examines the role of media representations on behaviour in relation to early labour and childbirth. We have completed a couple of primary studies. Anna Marsh has been awarded an Entry Level Scholarship from Wellbeing of Women to look at the role of social media. This work will commence in January 2021.
(3) Early Labour support. We have three doctoral fellowships funded through the Wessex Clinical Academic Training programme to explore interventions to support women during early labour at home:
• BALL Trial - Dominique Mylod
• Let’s Talk Early Labour (L-TEL) Trial - Rebecca Edwards
• Pain in early labour; developing support for women in the latent phase of labour - Vanessa Bartholomew
(4) Facilitating health system responsiveness to the global COVID-19 pandemic in low resource settings. Collaborative work with colleagues in the Development Education Resource Centre in Nepal and the Aga Khan University in Pakistan.

Publications

Grants

Outreach & engagement

Media coverage

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