Heading health services in West Virginia demands a rare combination of ambition and civic commitment from any public health professional. The state faces the highest rates in the nation of smoking, obesity, diabetes and drug overdose deaths. Its health outcomes are the worst of any state, marked by the highest rates of preventable and diabetes-related deaths, along with the highest average private health insurance premiums in the country.
On March 21, 2025, when bold leadership was essential to reversing health inequities across the state, Arvinjit “Arvin” Singh Sc.M. ’19, Ed.D., MBA, MPH, M.S., FACHDM, FACHE, stepped into the role of Secretary of Health for the State of West Virginia.
Secretary Singh has wasted no time in getting to work. In just under a year, he has secured a historic $200 million award to launch West Virginia’s Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP), a multi-year initiative (valued at nearly $1B over 5 years) designed to modernize care delivery, expand workforce pipelines, strengthen rural hospital stability and build an AI-enabled statewide data infrastructure.
Under his leadership, the Department of Health is modernizing regulatory and public health operations, working to strengthen stroke systems of care, launching the Mountaineer Mile statewide prevention initiative and driving efficiency and accountability and measuring outcomes across bureaus. He is building out the RHTP leadership team and aligning the state’s strategy with federal rural transformation opportunities.
Broadly, he is focused on transforming public health in West Virginia, improving health outcomes for residents and boosting operational efficiency statewide.
Singh’s career is defined by high-impact leadership roles, including overseeing large-scale capital planning and 340B strategy initiatives at the University of Maryland Medical System, and advancement of a $540 million academic medical center Certificate of Need approval and expansion of 340B drug pricing program strategy to strengthen safety-net access. He also served as Chief Operating Officer within an FQHC and one of the largest addiction treatment centers in Louisiana, supporting large-scale behavioral health and clinical operations across a multi-site system. A former Chairman of the Talbot Chamber of Commerce, Singh has long been active in community service and civic leadership. He and his wife, Dr. Sukhdeo Singh, a vascular neurologist, are the proud parents of three young boys.
For his work advancing the health of the people of West Virginia, Singh will be honored with the 2026 Alumni Impact Award from the Brown University School of Public Health. The award recognizes exceptional alumni of the school’s graduate programs and honors those who have made outstanding contributions to public health on a local, national or global level. Among his multiple advanced degrees, Singh received a Master's of Healthcare Leadership from Brown in 2019.
We spoke with Health Secretary Singh about his work in West Virginia and his experiences at Brown.
Given the depth of West Virginia’s health challenges, where have you begun to prioritize action?
With these new resources coming online through Rural Health Transformation, our biggest focus is on accountability and making sure we’re using these investments to truly move the needle. That means helping people get back into the workforce, strengthening the health care workforce itself and addressing chronic disease and access issues across the board.
We’ve organized this effort around seven pillars. Those pillars range from expanding access to care, to investing in innovative technologies through an initiative we call Health Tech Appalachia. So it really spans the full spectrum of what’s needed.
Overall, this represents about $1B over five years. With that level of investment, we’re being very intentional about prioritizing areas where we believe we can make measurable progress, especially when it comes to chronic disease and improving access to care.
How are you planning to implement AI-driven health services?
In addition to the Rural Health Transformation Program, there are separate resources through the BEAD program that are expanding broadband access and connecting many West Virginians who currently lack reliable internet. That’s a foundational step, because connectivity is essential for delivering modern, technology-enabled care.
Within the Rural Health Transformation Program itself, we’re focused on creating more local access points. That could include fire departments, police stations, libraries and other trusted community locations where people can connect to digital health services and help bridge that gap.
We’re also investing directly in smaller practices and rural hospitals that may be behind when it comes to electronic medical records. Improving and integrating these systems—and ensuring interoperability between them—is critical. That creates the infrastructure needed to support artificial intelligence and other advanced tools in a meaningful way.
More broadly, we’re leveraging AI to improve efficiency, support the health care workforce and enable new kinds of care delivery. We also have promising homegrown technologies here in the state, including innovations using laser treatments and neuromodulation to address addiction. These are the kinds of technologies we want to continue investing in, while also attracting private capital to help scale innovation and strengthen our health care ecosystem.
How will the Rural Health Transformation Program address the opioid crisis?
The opioid crisis hit West Virginia especially hard, though we’ve seen meaningful progress recently, both here and nationally. There’s been a significant reduction in overdose deaths, thanks in part to expanded naloxone distribution and stronger community-based interventions to prevent fatal overdoses.
Through the Rural Health Transformation Program, we’re investing in behavioral health organizations with innovative, evidence-based treatment models. A key framework we’re using is the continuum of care outlined by the American Society of Addiction Medicine, which spans from early intervention and outpatient care to detoxification, residential treatment and sober living. The goal is to ensure patients have a structured step-down pathway so they can recover successfully and reintegrate into the workforce.
Workforce reintegration is central to our approach. It’s not just about helping someone overcome addiction; it’s also about helping them rebuild stability and return to meaningful employment.
We’re also investing in emerging technologies and research-driven approaches, including work being done at the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, which is developing neuromodulation therapies to treat addiction. By addressing the crisis from multiple angles—clinical care, recovery support, workforce reintegration and technological innovation—we believe we can make lasting progress.
