Martina Roche

My research interests fall into two main strands.
1. The changing rural economy, particularly in the context of the role of women in rural Ireland and rural poverty. 
2. A focus on Medical/Health Geography, inequality, poverty & health and risk perception and how it influences behaviour in various health contexts. Both research strands interlink through work on the health of rural populations.

My PhD research considered patterns of cancer incidence and mortality in the South Eastern Health Board area and public perceptions of the same using both quantitative and qualitative methods. It found that respondents in three of six communities examined were considerably concerned about rates of cancer incidence and mortality in their local communities but that these perceptions paid little resemblance to actual incidence and mortality patterns in these areas. Neither age, gender nor marital status had any significant impact on these perceptions, instead threats to the ways of life and values of these communities posed by focal points of concern (namely a proposed dump in one community and mobile phone masts in two other communities) played a significant role in generating and perpetuating concern about cancer in these communities. This research emphasised the need for readily accessible small area health data in Ireland and the importance of community perceptions and their implications. This research has lead to a further interest in how risk perception influences behaviour in various health contexts.

Whilst working for the National Cancer Registry, as well as working on geographic analysis of cancer data for annual reports, I also initiated a project on cancer among farmers in Ireland, given that some cancers are more common among farmers.

With my role as Research Officer for Kildare County Council I moved into more socioeconomic research, publishing an atlas style socio-economic profile of the county as well as a poverty profile. In addition, I was funded to carry out research for Kildare County Childcare Committee, Kildare VEC and Kildare County Development Board.

I currently lecture on the following modules:
GY223 Geography of Rural Development 
GY326 Medical Geography 
GY606 Geography of Health & Healthcare 

In the past I have co-ordinated and lectured on GY201 Methods of Geographical analysis 1 & GY202 Methods of Geographical analysis from 2016-2022. I have also co-taught GY152 Living Landscapes 2, taught GY310B Geography Research Workshops and both First Year Human Geography modules (GY161 Global Environments 1 & GY152 Living Landscapes 2) at Kilkenny Outreach Campus where I was Subject Leader for Geography.

I have  planned and co-lead fieldtrip modules both within Ireland (GY205) and abroad (GY206). In 2018, I was part of a team, along with colleagues Dr Rowan Fealy and Dr Simon Noone, who developed synergies between research and teaching by integrating citizen science into the classroom through an innovative project called GEOLOCATE (GEO Locate land Observing ClimAte sTation attributEs) - a project undertaken by GY201 Methods of Geographical Analysis students as part of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), operated by the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) on behalf of the European Union. I have supervised a range of UG thesis projects in both rural geography and medical/health geography.