The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has named Yale researcher and alumna Linda C. Degutis as director of its National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.
Degutis, who will take up her new post in November, has been serving as research director for the Department of Emergency Medicine at Yale School of Medicine and director of the Yale Center for Public Health Preparedness at the Yale School of Public Health.
The CDC Injury Center serves as the focal point for a public health approach to preventing injuries and violence and reducing the consequences of injuries that do occur. Injuries accounted for more than 170,000 deaths in the United States in 2005 alone and millions more are injured each year and survive, many with short- or long-term disabilities. On a global scale, the World Health Organization, in its evaluation of the global burden of disease, predicts that by the year 2030 traffic accidents will become the fifth leading cause of death worldwide.
“This position allows me to bring together my past experience and education in order to increase the awareness of injury as a public health issue, and to grow the field of injury prevention and control in order to adequately address the injury problem,” she said. “I plan to continue to work toward the development, implementation and evaluation of policy that is science-based, and support the evaluation of prevention efforts to ensure that money directed toward them is well-spent.”
She said that one of her goals will be to increase the collaboration between the CDC Injury Center and partners within and outside of the federal government. Degutis will oversee a budget of approximately $145 million and a staff of 200 people.
At Yale, Degutis’ research interests have centered on issues related to alcohol and injury, with a particular focus on interventions and policy issues. At YSPH, she has focused on public health workforce education in the area of disaster preparedness, as well as public health systems and services research development, bringing together the practice and research communities.
Recently she worked with the Haiti Steering Committee of YSM to identify and plan for the provision of medical assistance in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake. Degutis was also part of a campuswide effort that sought to determine how Yale could participate in the Haitian relief and rebuilding efforts. As part of her work in disaster preparedness, she has also collaborated with the Yale Center for Bioethics to examine community values and altered standards of care in disasters.
She is director of the Connecticut Partnership for Public Health Workforce Development, part of the New England Alliance for Workforce Development. She has also worked with national, state, and local coalitions on various other efforts that impact public health and public policy, and has developed and taught programs on moving from research to advocacy.
Outside of Yale, she has served as the President of the American Public Health Association, as well as a member and Chair of its Executive Board.
She has served on other boards including the Executive Board of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, and the American Trauma Society. She is a member of the editorial boards of two journals,Injury Prevention and Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness.
She currently serves on the Advisory Board for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellowship Program.
Degutis came to Yale in 1980 as a student in the MSN program at Yale School of Nursing. She joined the Department of Surgery in 1982 as the Trauma Program Coordinator. She completed her doctor of public health degree at Yale in 1994 and in 1996 began a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellowship in the office of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-MN). She has been a faculty member in the Department of Surgery, Emergency Medicine and Public Health and a member of the clinical faculty at YSN.