Katrina Trivers, PhD, MSPH

Katrina Trivers, PhD, MSPH is the Associate Director for Science in CDC’s Division of Cancer Prevention and Control (DCPC). She advises the division director in setting scientific priorities and works with division staff to maintain scientific quality and integrity in division activities. Her research interests include health equity and the epidemiology, prevention, and control of ovarian, breast, and tobacco-associated cancers.

Dr. Trivers was previously the Research Team Lead in the Epidemiology Branch of CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health (OSH), where she oversaw a team of health economists, health scientists, epidemiologists, and qualitative researchers. She provided strategic direction for research related to tobacco prevention and control and oversaw qualitative work on health equity and tobacco use. Her research interests included youth tobacco use and use of cannabis and other non-nicotine substances in e-cigarettes and she managed the cognitive testing of National Youth Tobacco Survey questions. Prior to OSH, she led efforts to promote use of administrative health data at CDC while in CDC’s Division of Health Informatics and Surveillance and was an epidemiologist in DCPC, where she led scientific and programmatic efforts related to breast cancer in young women, cancer genomics, and ovarian cancer.

Dr. Trivers holds a master of science in public health degree and a doctorate in epidemiology from the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Selected recent articles Dr. Trivers has authored include—

• 2023 Trends in nicotine strength in electronic cigarettes sold in the United States by flavor, product type, and manufacturer, 2017–2022.
• 2023 Racial disparities in flavored tobacco product use, curiosity, susceptibility, and harm perception, National Youth Tobacco Survey 2019–2020.
• 2022 Cost of cigarette smoking-attributable productivity losses, U.S., 2018.
• 2021 Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)-containing e-cigarette, or vaping, product use behaviors among adults after the onset of the 2019 outbreak of e-cigarette, or vaping, product use-associated lung injury (EVALI).
• 2019 Substances used in electronic vapor products among adults in the United States, 2017.
• 2018 Prevalence of cannabis use in electronic cigarettes among US youth.
• 2015 The activities and impact of state programs to address hereditary breast and ovarian cancer, 2011–2014.
• 2014 Estimates of young breast cancer survivors at risk for infertility in the U.S.
• 2013 Regional variations in esophageal cancer rates by census region in the United States, 1999–2008.
• 2013 Issues of ovarian cancer survivors in the USA: a literature review.
• 2012 Vignette-based study of ovarian cancer screening: do U.S. physicians report adhering to evidence-based recommendations?
• 2011 Reported referral for genetic counseling or BRCA 1/2 testing among United States physicians: a vignette-based study.