Michelle A. Larkin
Team Director and Senior Program Officer
As Senior Program Officer and Team Director, Michelle Ann Larkin, J.D., M.S., R.N., leads the Foundation’s Public Health Team to improve the performance of the federal, state and local public health systems; build the evidence for what works to improve the quality and effectiveness of public health practice and policy; and advocate for the use of law and policy to improve health. Larkin leads a major initiative to build the field of public health law through three integrated strategies: building the evidence for effective public health laws and policies; enhancing the public health infrastructure to support public health practitioners and their legal counsel; and increase the support for, demand for and use of law by policy-makers, academics and professionals in fields that impact health.
Recruited to the Foundation in 1999, Larkin focused on tobacco control policy efforts and end-of-life care. During her tenure at the Foundation, she has worked to improve health and health care by working in several areas including tobacco control, nursing, end-of-life care, quality of care and public health. From 2003 through 2006, Larkin co-led the Foundation’s Tobacco Team, promoting increased tobacco excise taxes, adoption of state and local smoke-free air laws, and increased funding for tobacco prevention and treatment. Through her work, the Foundation has helped 21 states and numerous localities enact comprehensive smoke-free air laws. In addition to increasing the percent of the population covered by smoke-free laws, Larkin’s work has resulted in an increase in the combined state and federal excise tax from $1.11 to $1.55, preventing thousands of children from taking up smoking.
Larkin is also a member of the Foundation's Quality/Equality Team, which helps communities improve the quality of health care of their citizens by aligning those who give care, get care and pay for care. She serves as executive editor for Charting Nursing’s’ Future, a policy brief series that focuses on solutions to the nation’s nursing shortage. This policy brief series won the American Academy of Nursing 2007 Media Award for helping policy-makers and health care leaders address the nurse and nurse faculty shortages.
Larkin views RWJF as a unique opportunity to bring her clinical, policy and legal experience to bear to improve the public’s health. She strongly believes in the power of law and policy to create lasting social change. RWJF’s commitment to tackling some of the nation’s toughest health and health care problems fulfills the promise she made to herself “to never forget that the work I do impacts the lives of many and that I have a duty to ensure that work makes it easier for people to live healthier lives.”
Prior to joining the Foundation, Larkin worked as a health policy analyst at the Office on Smoking and Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Washington, D.C., developing and analyzing policy proposals related to state, national and international tobacco prevention and control and contributing to the development of Healthy People 2010. As a Presidential Management Intern, she also served as a legislative fellow for the U.S. Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, working on tobacco control, poison control, managed care reform, and children's health issues. She has served on several federal review committees and work groups. Previously, she was an oncology nurse at the University of Maryland Medical System in Baltimore, Md. She is a member of the American Public Health Association, the Public Health Law Association, the American Bar Association and the New Jersey Bar.
Larkin received a J.D. from Seton Hall University School of Law, an M.S. in nursing/health policy from the University of Maryland and a B.S.N. from the University of Pennsylvania.
Larkin and her spouse have one child and live in Bordentown, N.J. She enjoys martial arts competitions, distance walking and plays a “mean” game of Scrabble.