Julie Flom, MD, MPH, is a pediatric allergist and immunologist and specializes in allergic disorders and immunodeficiencies with a focus on food allergies and asthma prevention.
Dr. Flom says she initially thought she wanted to pursue a career as an epidemiologist because of her interest in how early environmental exposures can impact one’s health for life.
“As I worked with research participants, I realized I wanted to have a direct impact, which is what got me into medicine,” she says. “Pediatrics was perfect because I love working with kids and families and pediatrics is focused on prevention, which intersected with my research. I want to help families prevent chronic diseases, and I was drawn to allergy and asthma because of the way it affects one’s life.”
As a researcher and clinician, Dr. Flom’s interests continue to include understanding early-life risk factors and underlying mechanisms for development of pediatric allergic diseases, such as food allergy, asthma, eczema, and environmental allergies, and ways to prevent and treat allergic diseases.
“I have a passion for food allergies because it ties into so many aspects of life for kids and can be associated with mental health and nutritional effects,” she says. “I want kids to feel safe eating and to help families introduce new foods and broaden their diets as much as possible. I also love that this field has so much exciting research going on with new treatment options becoming available.”
Much of the asthma Dr. Flom treats is allergic asthma brought on by environmental triggers. “I enjoy working with families and kids to get their asthma under control as poorly managed asthma can impact quality of sleep and school success and so many other factors in everyday life,” she says.
Dr. Flom’s research includes smoking cessation and bridging the gap between prenatal and postnatal care. “Fifty percent of moms stop smoking during pregnancy, but 80% resume smoking within a year of their child’s birth. We are exploring novel interventions to address this as smoking is a risk factor for asthma in children,” she says.
