Dr. Marian F. Earls

Marian F. Earls, MD, MTS, FAAP, is board-certified in both General Pediatrics and Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics. Her career has focused on Medicaid and EPSDT policy and quality implementation in practice. She served as Director of Pediatric Programs and Deputy Chief Medical Officer for Community Care of North Carolina from July 2012 through December 2019 and led the NC CHIPRA Quality Demonstration Grant from 2010 to 2015. From 1994 to July 2012, she served as Medical Director of Guilford Child Health, a large nonprofit private pediatric practice in Greensboro, North Carolina, serving families at or below 200% of the federal poverty level. Dr. Earls is the developmental and behavioral pediatrician for the NICU Developmental Follow-up Clinic, a multidisciplinary program within Cone Health System in Greensboro. She is also a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.

As of 2020, she has established Marian F. Earls Consulting, LLC, focused on:

• Implementation of pediatric population processes in practice for early childhood development, infant and early childhood mental health, mental health competencies for pediatric practice, mental health integration in pediatric primary care, trauma-informed care, and addressing social drivers of health
• Cross-sector collaboration and systems-based approaches to support this work at the community and state levels

Dr. Earls is a past president of the North Carolina AAP Chapter, serving from 2008 to 2010. Her 2008 white paper on Foster Care and the Medical Home ultimately culminated in the Fostering Health NC project, a collaboration among Community Care of NC, NC Pediatric Society, and NC DSS. She is the lead author of the AAP Clinical Report, Incorporating Recognition and Management of Perinatal and Postpartum Depression into Pediatric Practice (Pediatrics, November 2010; updated Policy Statement, January 2019). She is also co-author of the AAP Policy Statement on Mental Health Competencies for Pediatric Practice.

Dr. Earls is editor of the AAP’s Addressing Mental Health Concerns in Pediatrics: A Practical Resource Toolkit for Clinicians, 2nd Edition. She serves as a liaison from the AAP to the AACAP (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry) Collaborative and Integrated Care Committee. She was a member of the Executive Committee of the AAP’s Council on Early Childhood from 2011 to 2017. She is Chair of the Mental Health Leadership Work Group of the AAP, which promotes national dissemination of mental health integration in pediatric practice. In 2022, she became Chair of the AAP’s new Council on Healthy Mental and Emotional Development.

In North Carolina, she co-leads the Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Work Group, a cross-sector group of health, mental health, early childhood, family, state government, and nonprofit organizations focused on building the workforce; consultation for primary care, early childhood teachers, child welfare, and early intervention professionals; and addressing the impact of structural racism on infant and early childhood mental health.
As lead for the NC CHIPRA Grant, Dr. Earls was involved in the evaluation and enhancement of the Pediatric EHR Format through AHRQ and CMS and contributed to RTI International’s formulation of the final recommendations. She also participated with the AAP in meetings with the ONC to promote adoption of requirements for Pediatric EHRs.

She was Co-Chair of the North Carolina Institute of Medicine Task Force for the Prevention of Child Maltreatment in 2005, the NC IOM Task Force on Early Childhood Mental Health in 2012, and the NCIOM Task Force on Children’s Preventive Oral Health Services in 2013. Since 2000, she has served as Director of the NC ABCD (Assuring Better Child Health and Development) Program. The purpose of ABCD has been to integrate developmental services—including screening, surveillance, parent education, and linkages to community resources—into pediatric practice. It includes developmental, maternal depression, social-emotional, autism, and social drivers of health screening.

At CCNC, she led the Sickle Cell Disease Project, a cross-sector statewide effort to promote NHLBI guidelines, encourage co-management between primary care clinicians and hematologists, and connect patients with medical homes. She served as faculty for the AAP Bright Futures Preventive Services Improvement Project Learning Collaborative in 2011 and for the Pediatric Integrated Care Collaborative, working with teams from multiple states through Johns Hopkins and funded by a grant from SAMHSA. She was National Co-Chair and Improvement Advisor for the AAP’s national Bright Futures Preventive Services Improvement Project from 2015 to 2016. She is a member of the AAP National Advisory Board on Screening and served as CQI Chair of the ASHEW (Addressing Social Health and Early Childhood Wellness) Learning Collaborative Project Advisory Committee. She was Faculty Chair for the HRSA-funded Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems Grant 12-state project from 2019 to 2021. She is also a member of the ADHD Guidelines Committee for the AAP and was one of the authors of the 2010 and 2019 ADHD Guidelines.

Dr. Earls received her A.B. in Biology in 1976 from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts; her Master of Theological Studies (MTS) in 1978 from Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University; and her M.D. from the University of Massachusetts in 1984.