MICHELLE WILSON FIGHTING DISPARITIES IN PUBLIC HEALTH
Michelle Wilson grew up around civil rights activists. Whether through family, friends or fellow members of the Mount Hope neighborhood in Providence, she’ s seen the power of community at work.
As a child, she took road trips to visit her grandparents in South Carolina, where, looking back, she recognizes the impacts of racism on full display.
“ It’ s an eighteen-hour trip, and we wouldn’ t stop,” she says.“ The thought of stopping at a hotel— you just didn’ t. It wasn’ t until we got to my grandmother’ s house that we felt safe.”
Wilson serves as chief of the Health Equity Institute at the Rhode Island Department of Health. It’ s one of many roles she’ s occupied throughout her career; she also leads the state Office of Minority Health and oversees the State Refugee Health Promotion Program and the Rhode Island Commission for Health Advocacy and Equity. She describes herself as being“ the conscience in the room” for those in need.
“ It was natural, even though I didn’ t know it at the time, that this is what I would end up doing,” she says.“ All I can remember is being around family members who were doing this kind of work.”
Among her most important battles was her advocacy to increase COVID-19 relief efforts in neighborhoods disproportionately affected by the pandemic, especially Central Falls. The state’ s smallest city was among the hardest hit in the early days of the pandemic.
“ The lack of understanding of what some people were going through and what they were struggling with— we had to fight, and we did,” Wilson says.“ Eventually, we were able to get things to turn around, and once we did, the number [ of cases ] started to come down.”
Following the experience, Wilson and colleagues from the Department of Health and the Brown University School of Public Health published a data brief titled“ Rhode Island COVID-19 Tiers,” an equityfocused, place-based approach to reducing hospitalization and death due to COVID-19. The publication outlines the strategy developed by the Health Equity Institute during the pandemic and showcases the impact of a person’ s ZIP code. She hopes her team’ s research will influence the state to take a“ data to action” approach to future public health emergencies.
“ If you’ re coming from a place where you already have a number of challenges, how you can expect people to get through this if you don’ t tailor certain responses and resources to their needs?” she says.
Besides serving as an advocate for others, Wilson mentors students pursuing their master’ s degrees in public health and serves on the board of Beautiful Day, a Providence nonprofit that connects refugees to job training and education resources. Prior to her work with the Department of Health, she served as director of community services at the Urban League of Rhode Island and led efforts to advance STEM and digital literacy among Black and Latino communities at Career Communications Group in Baltimore.
Utilizing her three decades of equity experience combined with the influence of her upbringing, Wilson doesn’ t see her advocacy work stopping anytime soon.
“ I want to invest in the next generation, those that are up and coming. And to the extent that I can share my wisdom, my knowledge and my experience to help others, I want to do that,” she says.— J. T. 🆁
96 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY I OCTOBER 2025