Executive Leadership & Expert Bios

Ruth Shults, PhD, MPH

Senior Epidemiologist, Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention, NCIPC

 

Ruth Shults, PhD, MPH, is a senior epidemiologist in the Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention in the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC). Her area of concentration is motor vehicle crash prevention.

During her 11-year tenure on the Motor Vehicle Team, Dr. Shults has led CDC′s research and program activities in the areas of alcohol-impaired driving, safety belt use, and teen driving. In this role, she coordinates systematic reviews of interventions to increase seat belt use and reduce alcohol-impaired driving for the Guide to Community Preventive Services. The findings of a systematic review on 0.08 percent blood alcohol concentration (BAC) laws helped to establish 0.08 percent as the illegal BAC for adult drivers nationwide. Her other research interests include understanding the contribution of the community-level influences in reducing alcohol-impaired driving.

Dr. Shults received her doctorate degree in epidemiology from the University of North Carolina.

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