The Reading Warehouse

Erin Ruel is associate professor of sociology and director of graduate studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta, GA. She received her PhD in sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2003. In 2003, Erin took a postdoctoral position at the University of Wisconsin Madison in the Center for Demography of Health and Aging. While there, she continued to hone her survey research skills on the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. Soon after arriving in Atlanta to take an assistant professor position at Georgia State University (GSU) in 2005, she began the Urban Health Initiative, a longitudinal survey study of public housing residents facing involuntary relocation with GSU colleagues. Erin was principal investigator of the National Institutes of Health study on the health outcomes of relocated public housing residents and co-investigator on two National Science Foundation grants, examining social disorganization and social support for public housing residents. She employs quantitative and mixed methods to examine health disparities and the health consequences of racial residential segregation, neighborhood disadvantage, housing, and socioeconomic status. Ruel has published in numerous journals, including Demography, Social Forces, Social Science Research, Health and Place, Journal of Housing Studies, Cities, Sociology Compass, Journal of Adolescent Health, and Journal of Urban Health.