SSM ECRs featuring… Flo Martin!
Flo Martin is a PhD Student at the Medical Research Council Integrative Epidemiology Unit, University of Bristol.
 | Flo Martin University of Bristol PhD Student SSM member since: 2021 SSM participation: 2021 ASM, 2021 ECR workshop 2022 ECR Subcommittee Chair Elect Topics of interest: Pharmacoepidemiology; pregnancy; women’s health |
What inspired you to pursue a career in public health?
As someone who has always been interested in science, I was initially attracted to epidemiology specifically because it is an area of research with a broad-reaching impact that is accessible to everyone, both scientific and non-scientific. During my degree in pharmacology at Newcastle University, I worked with the UK Teratology Information Service (UKTIS), which is a UK provider of evidence-based information on pregnancy exposures. I undertook two projects with them during my time as an undergraduate, the first looking at the potential risks of venlafaxine (an antidepressant) during pregnancy, and then paracetamol overdose during pregnancy. Learning about the rigorous testing of drugs in populations via randomised controlled trials for general medicine use during my lectures, and then performing observational studies at UKTIS for medicine use in pregnancy populations was a stark contrast for me. My partner was living in Bristol when I finished my degree in 2019, and the University of Bristol was running the first year of its new Epidemiology MSc that year – the stars had aligned! From there, I took up a Wellcome Trust PhD studentship also at Bristol to study antidepressant use during pregnancy which I am in the process of completing at the moment.
What excites you about working in research now?
Big datasets and newer methods are being implemented to tackle not only new problems, but also questions that have already been investigated in the past. Covering old ground as well as new is exciting because where small numbers and inadequate statistical approaches had sometimes drawn either inconclusive or potentially biased findings, we are able to challenge ideas with different approaches. I love the collaborative aspect of research, where, as a researcher, you work within a global community of people trying to find individual pieces of a puzzle that come together to ultimately improve health outcomes.
What area of social medicine/public health are you interested in?
Providing women with robust evidence to inform their decision-making during pregnancy, particularly in relation to medication use, is something I am passionate about. As well as generating high-quality evidence for pregnant women, adequately communicating risk with different audiences is such an important aspect of public health research. I enjoy pregnancy pharmacoepidemiology (the study of drug use in pregnant populations) because it’s a topic area that everyone always has an interesting perspective on, through either research or experience (or both!).
Can you tell us a bit about a project you’re working on now?
Currently I am working on my PhD project looking at the use of antidepressants during pregnancy using UK GP records. The wealth of evidence in this area has concluded that lots of the associations between antidepressant use during pregnancy and outcomes such as miscarriage and stillbirth may be confounded by indication. In other words, depression may be contributing to the association between antidepressants and adverse outcomes; in order to give the right advice to pregnant women considering coming off their medication, we need to understand the benefit risk ratio of treating depression versus leaving the condition untreated during pregnancy.
What do you hope this will lead to?
Although it’s in its early stages, we hope mainly to add some reliable pieces of evidence to the ever-growing pool of research by the global pregnancy pharmacoepidemiology community from this PhD project. I hope to give an up-to-date description of how prescribing changes before, during and after pregnancy in England, again adding to thorough previous works from colleagues. Alongside this, I also hope to cover a range of adverse pregnancy, birth, and neurodevelopmental outcomes following antidepressant use during pregnancy using multiple methods in an attempt to unpick the potential effect of antidepressants from the potential effect of depression as best I can.
Bonus question from SSM Subcommittee: If you could have had a career as a musician, what instrument would you have wanted to play?
I have played the violin since I was 8 years old and would have loved to have played in a professional orchestra. Musicians get to travel and play amazing music together – it looks like a lot of fun! I am lucky enough to live in Bristol and be part of an amateur symphony orchestra, Bristol Symphony Orchestra and we get together around twice a month, giving concerts three times a year (although halted by Covid in recent times!). So although I don’t get to play every day for my job, I am lucky enough to still be able to enjoy it outside of work.
To keep up to date with Flo, follow her on Twitter @_flomartin or get in touch via email.
SSM ECR features is a blog series that celebrates early career researchers. Each month we meet a member we admire, learn more about their work and find out what and who inspires them. To find out more visit socsocmed.org.uk/blog or email ecr.ssm@gmail.com.