Dr. Ruth Abaya currently serves as the Senior Director of Health Systems and CVI Integration at The Health Alliance for Violence Intervention.
Previously, she was a Stoneleigh Fellow with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), where she created a registry of individuals who have experienced fatal and nonfatal firearm injuries in Philadelphia to identify the most promising practices for violence prevention and intervention in the city.
Ruth also serves as an attending physician in the Emergency Department at CHOP and as an assistant professor of clinical pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. In addition, she is a practice-based scholar of CHOP’s Center for Violence Prevention and the program manager for the Injury Prevention Program at the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. As a pediatric emergency medicine fellow, Ruth’s research focused on identifying risk factors for firearm carrying and common carrying practices among a cohort of adolescents.
Ruth holds a bachelor’s degree from Bluffton University and an MD and MPH from Northwestern University. She completed her pediatric residency at Boston Children’s Hospital and her fellowship training at CHOP. She is a member of the National Medical Council on Gun Violence and has presented on gun violence prevention nationally.
