After a lengthy and challenging healthcare experience, Ashlee Wisdom realized how crucial it is to have a culturally sensitive doctor. A graduate of Howard University who also holds an MPH from New York University, Wisdom responded by cofounding a digital platform that connects women of color with competent, compassionate healthcare providers.
Early Life
Ashlee Wisdom was born on April 16, 1990, in the Bahamas. The daughter of a Jamaican mother and stepfather, she moved with her parents and three younger siblings to New York when she was eight months old. Wisdom describes her family as being close, and between that and the time she spent in the church as a youth, she learned early on the importance of community.
Wisdom’s early years unfortunately also exposed her to discrimination. During her childhood in the Bronx, she began to notice the systemic inequities faced by people in her community. Her growing awareness of this issue would eventually carry her toward a career that would allow her to address these gaps.
Wisdom attended high school in the Bronx, graduating from the Academy of Mount Saint Ursula before leaving New York to attend Howard University in Washington, DC. Throughout her studies, she supported young people by volunteering for more than 600 hours with Jumpstart, an early education program affiliated with AmeriCorps.
Early Career
Wisdom graduated from Howard in 2013 with a bachelor’s in psychology and biology. She subsequently spent three years as the managing editor of the lifestyle magazine Urban Cusp. During her time with the progressive publication, she made her first foray into the field of health care when she accepted a role with Cornerstone Family Healthcare.
Serving as a grants associate for the health center, Wisdom secured more than $4 million in grant funds in less than two years. Wisdom remained in the healthcare field for her next position, joining Weill Cornell Medicine, where she served first as an administrative specialist and later as a research manager. She also returned to school during this time, enrolling at New York University to pursue a master of public health (MPH) in healthcare policy and management.
Unfortunately, as she told The Guardian, it was also during this time that she began to break out in chronic hives. Seeing an allergist for the problem, Wisdom underwent tests, but her doctor, a white woman, was unable to determine the cause of the issue.
The experience proved illuminating for Wisdom. Coming from a different cultural background than her allergist, Wisdom didn’t think to mention that she was enduring racism and discrimination at her job. It was the resulting stress that proved to be the source of the hives, and Wisdom later realized that her doctor may have been better able to treat her had she felt comfortable discussing this aspect of her life.
Wisdom, whose hives cleared once she left her job, was well versed in the disparate health outcomes of Black women through her master’s studies at NYU. Between this knowledge and her personal healthcare experience, she began to consider the value of consulting with culturally sensitive doctors for Black and other women of color.
Health in Her Hue
Wisdom started to sow the seeds of what would become Health in Her Hue in 2018. Drawing on her MPH, which she had completed the same year, she began pulling relevant content from medical journals, then posting the content along with accompanying photos on Instagram. Later, she moved the project to a separate website.
While preparing a series on maternal health, Wisdom approached Eddwina Bright. Like Wisdom, Bright had come to realize the importance of culturally sensitive care after a frustrating healthcare experience. While giving birth to her oldest child, she says her doctors pressured her into having a cesarean section and failed to answer her questions as to why she needed the procedure.
Following their work together on the maternal health series, Bright and Wisdom continued to partner to build out Wisdom’s website. Along with articles and videos, the platform included a community where women of color could discuss their medical care.
Wisdom and Bright noticed that the members of the community were frequently expressing how difficult it was to find culturally sensitive doctors. At the time, their platform listed only six healthcare providers. Seeing a need, the pair responded by building a curated national directory of Black physicians.
Launched in June 2020, the directory attracted more than 34,000 users in its first two weeks online. Today, more than 1,200 healthcare providers are listed on the platform.
With Wisdom leading as CEO—and fellow cofounder Bright serving as chief product officer—Health in Her Hue secured $1 million in funding in the summer of 2021. Wisdom says she intends to use the money to spur the growth of her platform, which she hopes to turn into a go-to place for women of color to learn about all things health care.
Accolades and Volunteer Work
Wisdom is an Equity Advocate Awardee on Rock Health’s Top 50 in Digital Health list. She has also shared her professional insights as a speaker at the All Raise Visionary Voices Speakers Bureau and TEDx Wakefield.
In addition to her degrees, Wisdom has completed a Healthy Communities Fellowship through the Aspen Institute’s Aspen Global Innovators program. In 2019-20, she was an Emerging Leaders Fellow at the Vital Voices Global Partnership.
Today, along with guiding Health in Her Hue as CEO, Wisdom continues to support young people as a board member of Peer Health Exchange. She also serves on the junior board of directors of Girls Inc.