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.

• 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. J Pediatr Psychol. 2012 May; 37(4):414-23.
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• Winter MA, Fiese BH, Spagnola M, Anbar RD. Asthma severity, child security, and child internalizing: Using story stem techniques to assess the meaning children give to family and disease-specific events. J Fam Psychol. 2011 Dec; 25(6):857-67.
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• Fiese BH, Winter MA, Botti JC. The ABCs of family mealtimes: observational lessons for promoting healthy outcomes for children with persistent asthma. Child Dev. 2011 Jan-Feb; 82(1):133-45.
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• Fiese BH, Winter MA, Wamboldt FS, Anbar RD, Wamboldt MZ. Do family mealtime interactions mediate the association between asthma symptoms and separation anxiety? J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2010 Feb; 51(2):144-51.
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• Sturge-Apple ML, Davies PT, Winter MA, Cummings EM, Schermerhorn A. Interparental conflict and children's school adjustment: the explanatory role of children's internal representations of interparental and parent-child relationships. Dev Psychol. 2008 Nov; 44(6):1678-90.
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• Davies PT, Woitach MJ, Winter MA, Cummings EM. Children's insecure representations of the interparental relationship and their school adjustment: the mediating role of attention difficulties. Child Dev. 2008 Sep-Oct; 79(5):1570-82.
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• Fiese B, Winter M, Anbar R, Howell K, Poltrock S. Family climate of routine asthma care: associating perceived burden and mother-child interaction patterns to child well-being. Fam Process. 2008 Mar; 47(1):63-79.
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• Fiese BH, Winter MA, Sliwinski M, Anbar RD. Nighttime waking in children with asthma: an exploratory study of daily fluctuations in family climate. J Fam Psychol. 2007 Mar; 21(1):95-103.
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• Winter MA, Davies PT, Hightower AD, Meyer SC. Relations among family discord, caregiver communication, and children's family representations. J Fam Psychol. 2006 Jun; 20(2):348-51.
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• Davies PT, Sturge-Apple ML, Winter MA, Cummings EM, Farrell D. Child adaptational development in contexts of interparental conflict over time. Child Dev. 2006 Jan-Feb; 77(1):218-33.
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• Davies PT, Winter MA, Cicchetti D. The implications of emotional security theory for understanding and treating childhood psychopathology. Dev Psychopathol. 2006; 18(3):707-35.
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• Davies PT, Cummings EM, Winter MA. Pathways between profiles of family functioning, child security in the interparental subsystem, and child psychological problems. Dev Psychopathol. 2004; 16(3):525-50.
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