Lead of perinatal pharmacoepidemiology research
Health Services Research and Pharmacoepidemiology Unit, Foundation for the Promotion of Health and Biomedical Research of Valencia Region, Valencia, Spain, Spain
Clara L. Rodríguez-Bernal, DDS, PhD. Lead of Perinatal Pharmacoepidemiology, HSRP Unit, FISABIO.
Bachelor of Dental Surgery from the National University of Colombia, 1998; Master in Public Health from Miguel Hernández University, 2009; Visiting researcher Slone Epidemiology Center, 2012; PhD in Public Health from Miguel Hernández University, 2014.
After having worked in the clinical field for several years in the Colombian National Health Service, I joined Miguel Hernández University as a Public Health Masters’ Trainee (2007-2009).
In 2009 joined the former Centre for Public Health Research (CSISP), where I worked at the Environment and Health Area , performing research with data from a mother-child cohort, assessing the effects of several exposures during pregnancy on fetal development.
Since 2014, I work at the Health Services Research and Pharmacoepidemiology Unit at FISABIO. My research has mainly focused on pharmacoepidemiology studies, specifically in the evaluation of the use of drugs, adherence to treatments and the analysis of the effectiveness and safety of medications in population cohorts, through the combined use of different databases to evaluate these aspects under conditions of routine clinical practice (real world evidence) and using advance statistical and epidemiological methods. Furthermore, I have extensive knowledge and experience in the study of cohorts of pregnant women and birth and child development outcomes.
The experience in these two fields: pharmacoepidemiology in patients with chronic diseases and maternal-fetal research led me to co-initiate (2020) and currenlty lead the perinatal pharmacoepidemiology research line, seeking to generate evidence on the use and safety of medications during pregnancy, a field in which there are several knowledge gaps.
Awards and Honours: Awarded the prize to best article of the year of the Spanish Society of Epidemiology, in 2013 and 2021 for research on mother-child cohorts. Extraordinary PhD award (UMH, 2015). Sara Borrell fellow (2020-2023).