Nia Heard-Garris

Nia Heard-Garris, M.D., M.Sc., M.B.A., a pediatrician and health services researcher, completed the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program (CSP) at IHPI in 2017.

Heard-Garris’s research centers on the relationship between the adversities experienced in childhood and their impact on health. Through that work, she aims to generate the knowledge to inform evidence-based interventions that help pediatricians and policymakers build resilience in children and in the communities that support them.

Prior to the CSP, Heard-Garris spent many years in the nation’s capital, earning her M.D. from Howard University College of Medicine, where she helped launch a student-run free clinic for Washington, D.C., residents, and training at Children’s National Medical Center for her pediatric residency. During this time, she completed a health policy fellowship and worked in Honduras as part of the global health track.

In her early career as a pediatrician, Heard-Garris worked at a federally qualified health center in Takoma Park, Maryland, with an influx of youth who recently crossed the US-Mexico border, directly witnessing the health impacts of trauma and adversity on children crossing the border, often by themselves. These clinical experiences sparked her focus on childhood adversity and resilience.

When Heard-Garris came to the CSP, she was interested in understanding that adversity and how it impacted health, as well as how to disrupt this pathway. At the time, she had plans to return to Washington to continue her policy work on Capitol Hill as a legislative aide. She had written off the idea of focusing on research, thinking it would not allow her to have the deep societal impact she envisioned for her career.

But her experience with the CSP led her in a new direction. “The program at IHPI was transformational for me. It completely changed the trajectory of my career, opening up a whole new research path I hadn’t yet considered,” says Heard-Garris. “What I discovered was that I wanted to do research that had the potential to influence societal change at the policy level. I can’t even imagine what my career would look like today without this program.”

“The program at U-M was transformational for me. It completely changed the trajectory of my career, opening up a whole new research path I hadn’t yet considered.”

– Nia Heard-Garris

As a Clinical Scholar, Heard-Garris served as a fellow at the United States Department of Health and Human Services for the Assistant Secretary of Preparedness and Response. In that role, she worked on the Zika virus outbreak and the Flint water crisis. “It was really interesting to be in D.C. at that time and to think about the needs of children and families in our society,” she says.

Heard-Garris has long been interested in childhood adversity, the impact of adverse experiences on health, and fostering resilience for children in high-stress situations, as well as issues related to structural racism and immigration. Currently a tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, and in the Division of Advanced General Pediatrics and Primary Care, Mary Ann & J. Milburn Smith Child Health Outcomes, Research, and Evaluation Center at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, Heard-Garris founded the ARISE Health Lab at Lurie, which investigates the role of adversity, racism, inequities, structures, and empowerment on health.

Through ARISE, she has conducted several trials on adversity, including an eight-week intervention focused on the role of activism for teens, and whether this can be used as a tool for improved mental health outcomes. The goal of the intervention is to teach teens the skills to become effective activists for issues they consider important. “Our findings revealed that teen participant depression scores dropped 50 percent, anxiety scores dropped 20 percent, and resilience scores increased 10 percent,” she says. This study is now funded by an R01 mechanism via the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (R01MD017610-01A1).

Heard-Garris’s team felt compelled to create this intervention because of the history of activism in communities who face consistent societal adversities, especially communities of color. They wanted to know if activism is not only something that can be used to improve society, but also to improve personal health outcomes.

She has also examined the impact of parental incarceration on children’s health, a topic she began exploring as a Clinical Scholar. In 2021, Heard-Garris was invited to speak on a panel for a task force developing policy recommendations for children of incarcerated parents alongside the Lieutenant Governor of Illinois. “It was a surreal moment for me where policymakers were actually using my research and inviting me to talk because they were really interested and wanted to do the best for kids,” she says.

In addition to her roles at Northwestern, she is also an active member of the American Academy of Pediatrics and served as the founding chair of the Section on Minority Health, Equity, and Inclusion.

Heard-Garris notes the exceptional mentorship she received while in the CSP, from Rodney Hayward, M.D., the former program director at U-M, and Matt Davis, M.D., MAPP, now executive vice president for Nemours Children’s Health. “They modeled for me how to be a scientist and how to mentor others, practices I still use today with mentees in my own lab,” she says.

Since completing the CSP, Heard-Garris has collaborated with several members of her cohort — including Tyler Winkelman, M.D., M.S., now at Hennepin Healthcare, and Kristin Kan, M.D., M.P.H., M.Sc., now at the Stanley Manne Children's Research Institute — to complete several studies and papers. She has also written commentaries and manuscripts with many other program alums. “We have thought about big ideas together. These people have definitely influenced my work,” she says.

Heard-Garris points to another member of her cohort, Andrew Ibrahim, M.D., M.S., Maud T. Lane Research Professor, and co-director of the U-M Center for Healthcare Outcomes & Policy, as someone who has influenced her work. “Andrew created the idea of ‘visual abstracts,’ where researchers use pictures to tell the story of their science,” she says. “I use these visual abstracts for every project to ensure that the complex science translates to the layperson, using plain language. It’s something that many other researchers use now.”

Heard-Garris looks back on her experience with the CSP, and the invaluable connections she made within her cohort. “I still feel so connected to my class, and I am grateful for them. We keep in touch, both on a personal and professional level,” she says. “I think more than anything else what has stuck with me is how much love and support I felt while I was in the program.”