Helen Rodríguez Trías[note 1] (July 7, 1929 – December 27, 2001) was an American pediatrician, educator and women's rights activist.

She is credited with helping to expand the range of public health services for women and children in minority and low-income populations around the world.

[2] Even though she had received good grades in school and knew how to speak English, she was placed in a class with students with learning disabilities.

After Rodríguez Trías graduated from high school, she decided she would like to study medicine and that her chances would be much better in Puerto Rico because the island had a good scholarship system.

[5] During her residency at the University Hospital in San Juan, she established the first center for the care of newborn babies in Puerto Rico.

Rodríguez Trías interest in women's rights began shortly after attending an abortion conference at Bernard College.

[6] During the 1960s and 1970s, many programs popped up around the United States, specifically targeting women of color (African Americans/Latinas) to perform non-consented sterilizations.

She supported abortion rights, fought for the abolishment of enforced sterilization, and sought neonatal care for underserved people.

She is credited with helping to expand the range of public health services for women and children in minority and low-income populations in the United States, Central and South America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

[2][5] Rodríguez Trías once stated that her biggest inspiration came from "the experience of [her] own mother, aunts and sisters, who faced so many restraints in their struggle to flourish and realize their full potential.

[11] In 2019, Chirlane McCray announced that New York City would build a statue honoring Rodríguez Trías in St. Mary's Park, near Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx.

Overall, Rodríguez Trías leaves behind a legacy that can be explained with her own words: We need health, but above all we need to create a grounding for healthy public policy that redresses and salvages the growing inequities.