IF you have 45wE actually shroud of distress will trigger LATER! for example say you have 500hp without the mod then shroud will trigger after 250dmg taken, whilst if you have a 45wE it will trigger after 273 damage taken.
the health mod doesn't provide any benefit unless you take spike damage with huge hits or when you have percentual healing like infuse health (which you will not have on chest running).
since in PvE there is never any spike you will always be better suited by reducing incoming damage since the healing output you have is an absolute and anything reducing damage lowers the weight against that.
also chest running != sf+shroud. certainly one of the popular ones, but many areas don't require an sf upkeep, which basically saves you 1sec standing still every 25 seconds and you might be better suited using "charge" or "escape" to lose aggro and you will neither be delayed by standing still to cast nor exposed to projectile attacks by not strafing or melee attacks catching up.
another aspect to consider however is the different mechanic of the armor mod between insc and os shields. basically a "watch yourself" caps the bonus armor category making any and all inherent armor mod bonuses useless (with no penalties present like cracked armor) and hence will usually be without effect really since you usually bring a skill to provide armor and health regen for the tough parts like shadow sanctuary. and on the non tough parts it is irrelevant anyways. so you could as well run a singlemod -2 shield and be just as tough as wielding a super sophisticated adapted shield for any situation. whereas ofc a armor mod will extend the time between two times where your safe skill is necessary - and sometimes this may make the difference. but with the general argument:
1. insc is better than inherent, but there are only health secondary mods which don't provide any benefit on PvE
2. inherent armor mods are irrelevant on the relevant PvE sections
3. leaves attri and cond duration reduction mods (or a second reduction mod on prenerfs) as useful secondaries to a reduction mod as useful chestrunning combos.
so you might as well bring your trusty 1/20 str/-2wS shield as the perfect option.
(Special thanks to Red Fireball for letting the defender go)
