Martina Otavova

Hello, and thank you for visiting my website!

I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Demographic Research (DEMO) at the Catholic University of Louvain (UCLouvain) and a voluntary senior researcher at Interface Demography within the Brussels Institute for Social and Population Studies (BRISPO) at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). My research lies at the intersection of demography, epidemiology, and statistics, with a strong focus on health inequalities and the social and environmental determinants of health. 

Much of my work has examined cause-specific mortality and lifespan inequalities across Belgian neighborhoods classified by levels of socioeconomic deprivation. I am also interested in how environmental factors - when combined with social inequalities - influence population health, with a particular focus on heat-related mortality as a growing concern in the context of climate change. Recently, I have begun working on a new project centered on population projections for Belgium, developed in line with the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways framework. 

Throughout my academic journey, I have sought to apply advanced quantitative methods to address complex public health questions. My research has been published in journals including the  International Journal of Public Health,  BMC Public Health, Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology, and the Journal of Transport & Public Health. 

In November 2024, I earned a dual PhD in Political and Social Sciences with a specialization in demography from UCLouvain, and in statistics from Hasselt University. From June to September 2023, I held a visiting researcher position at the Department of Demography and Population Sciences at the University of Montreal. In 2018 - 2019, I was a participant in the European Doctoral School of Demography,  hosted by the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research and the University of Southern Denmark. 

My most recent professional experience includes working as a consultant at the Health Equity Monitoring Unit at the WHO from December 2024 to February 2025. Just before that, I completed an internship at the Unit of Sensory Functions, Disability and Rehabilitation at WHO in Geneva between December 2023 and January 2024. From September 2019 to August 2020, I worked as a research assistant at the Unit of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Biodemography at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense, where I supported research projects focused on demographic and public health challenges. 

I am a member of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP), the British Society for Population Studies (BSPS), the Population Association of America (PAA), and the European Public Health Association (EUPHA).