Research Bio
My research focuses on the mechanisms by which stress exposure influences child health. I am particularly interested in how children are affected emotionally, at the level of interpreting and making meaning of challenging situations, and physically, at the level of immune function and health outcomes. In addition, I examine how various processes, for example parenting and family processes, can be protective for children.
My most recent research, entitled Child & Adolescent Physical & Emotional Development - Cancer Context (CAPED-C; K99HD070953), is currently in the pilot phase. We are investigating how families and children cope with a diagnosis of pediatric cancer. Specifically, we examine how broad sociodemographic and life stress, biological factors, health behaviors, and psychosocial processes interact to influence mental health and immunologic factors, which in turn influences disease processes and quality of life. This research advances a novel, integrative biopsychosocial model of pediatric mental and immune function in the context of sociodemographic and family risk and protective factors. The public health significance of this work lies in its potential to highlight multiple, individual- and family-level points of intervention within populations of vulnerable, immunocompromised children.
2012 May
Raymond KP, Fiese BH, Winter MA, Knestel A, Everhart RS. "Helpful hints: caregiver-generated asthma management strategies and their relation to pediatric asthma symptoms and quality of life." Journal of pediatric psychology. 2012 May 0; 37(4):414-23. Epub 2012 Mar 09. |
2012
O'Connor, T. G., Winter, M.A., Hunn, J., Carnahan, J., Pressman, E. K., Glover, V., Robertson-Blackmore, E., Moynihan, J. A., Lee, F. E., & Caserta, M. T. "Prenatal Maternal Anxiety Predicts Reduced Adaptive Immunity in Infants". 2012; Submitted. |
2012
Winter, M. A. & O'Connor, T. G. "Child Immune Function and Family Processes." 2012; In prep. |
2012
Winter, M. A., O'Connor, T. G., Moynihan, J. A., Caserta, M. T., & Carnahan, J. "Sociodemographic risk and child immune function." 2012; In prep. |
2011
Fiese BH, Winter MA, Botti JC. "The ABCs of family mealtimes: observational lessons for promoting healthy outcomes for children with persistent asthma." Child development. 2011 82(1):133-45. |
