Erik Crankshaw

Erik Crankshaw is an expert in health behavior specializing in research on tobacco prevention and control. He evaluates interventions and other programs aimed at preventing smoking, especially among young people, and designs studies of tobacco use and other health behaviors. His quantitative research skills include structural equation modeling and factor analysis, latent class and latent transition analysis, and panel and longitudinal data analysis, using MPlus and SPSS software. His clients include the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, state and local health departments, and other public health organizations.

Dr. Crankshaw served as Project Director of the evaluation of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) This Free Life campaign and serves as Project Director of an FDA-funded project to assess e-cigarette safety and associated adverse events. He directs the evaluation of Utah’s Tobacco Prevention and Control Program and California’s opioid overdose prevention and education media campaign, and he led evaluations of Colorado’s stigma, opioid misuse, and overdose prevention media campaigns.

Previously, Dr. Crankshaw was associate project director of the evaluation of the Bureau of Tobacco Free Florida’s tobacco prevention and control program from 2008 to 2020. He worked on the evaluations of CDC’s Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW) and Community Transformation Grants (CTG) chronic disease prevention programs. Prior to joining RTI, he worked for 6 years in community health promotion at the Utah Department of Health and Salt Lake County Health Department, where he planned and coordinated health promotion activities for tobacco prevention and control. He is a member of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco.