Kanetha Wilson

Kanetha Wilson received her B.A. in Economics at the University of Tennessee in 2006. Before coming to Vanderbilt, she worked in the education sector for both public schools and private companies. While within different school settings, she became aware of the vast disparities in health between children in advantaged and disadvantaged neighborhoods. Her observations in these schools were a driving force in her master’s paper research, in which she explored social determinants of oral health and contributors to the black/white disparity in dental health. In her master’s paper, Kanetha utilizes a unique dataset—from a survey of dentists in Davidson County she collected in the summer of 2012—and a large secondary source to analyze the various mechanisms by which treatment and quality of dental care vary by race. Presently, she has expanded her interests to broader health concerns as she aims to understand the ways a racialized and gendered society shape the process of disease and illness for women.