Dr. Neha John-Henderson is tired of doom and gloom narratives.
“This idea that if you’ve had a lot of childhood trauma, you’re doomed to have bad health. Or, if you were raised in a low-income environment, you’re told, ‘Sorry, you’re going to be at greater risk for all these diseases as an adult,’” says John-Henderson, an assistant professor in Montana State University’s Department of Psychology.
“It’s not a very optimistic picture,” she adds. “And you can’t go back and change your previous experiences.”
That’s why her lab at MSU likes to focus on resilience. As founder and principal investigator of the Stress, Adversity, Resilience and Health (SARAH) Lab, John-Henderson knows that psychosocial experiences — whether they be related to historical trauma or poverty — can affect one’s risk for chronic disease. But what’s more interesting to her is how some people remain resilient despite their life experiences. Through her lab, she’s setting out to find the keys to such resilience.
Dr. Neha John-Henderson
As a research investigator with Montana State’s Center for American Indian and Rural Health Equity (CAIRHE), John-Henderson is specifically seeking to answer those questions as they relate to a particularly vulnerable — but also resilient — community: the Blackfeet Nation.
According to CAIRHE — which works to reduce health disparities for rural and native populations — Montana’s rural residents face higher mortality rates for six of the 10 leading causes of death, compared to residents of more urban counties. For the state’s Native communities, those disparities are even starker.
