1.  Participants reported on their demographic information, including gender, age, ethnicity, education, income, relationship to child, and romantic relationship status.  Parenting stress was assessed using the parenting stress composite of the Challenges to Parenting measure at Time 1 (Lohman et al., 2004;  =.75).  Each of the following were dichotomized with a 1 given for the presence of the risk: (1) single parenthood; (2) teen motherhood; (3) living below the poverty line; (4) maternal education less than high school; (5) the presence of one or more of 11 neighborhood problems assessed (e.g., high unemployment, burglaries, assaults; Bachman & Chase-Lansdale, 2005;  =.91); and (6) clinical levels of maternal depression as assessed by the Brief Symptom Inventory 18 (Derogatis, 2000;  =.83). A cumulative risk score was calculated by taking the sum of these dichotomized variables.  The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL; Achenbach, 1991, 1992) was used to assess child outcomes at Time 1 and 2. To address the use of different versions of the CBCL by age, the following subscales were standardized to yield the Internalizing and Externalizing Problems subscales across age groups at Time 1 and 2:  CBCL/2-3 (Achenbach, 1992) for children ages 2-3: Internalizing (  T1 =.81 and  T2 =.82); Externalizing (  T1 =.90 and  T2 =.90).  CBCL/4-18 (Achenbach, 1991) for children ages 4-14: Internalizing (  T1 =.87 and  T2 =.88); Externalizing (  T1 =.88 and  T2 =.90).  Data were drawn from the first two time points of Welfare, Children, and Families: The Three-City Study, a random sample of 2,402 low- income families.  The analyses focused on 1619 female caregivers ( M age = 34.79; SD age = 9.79 ) with a child at least 2 years old (38% 2 to 5 years old; 62% 9 to 15 years old; 50% females) who participated at both Time 1 and 2.  The majority of caregivers were Hispanic (46.1%) and Black (43.9%), with the remaining sample of White (9.1%) and Other (e.g., Asian American, Biracial; 1.9%) ethnicities.  The majority of caregivers were biological mothers (90.9%) and not married/cohabitating (68.4%).  All participants reported on their family background, family risks, parenting stress, and child outcomes during in-home interviews.  Both the presence of family risk and parenting stress has been associated with unfavorable outcomes for children. Specifically, stressed parents are more likely to engage in punitive, negative, and withdrawn interactions with children, which can damage the parent- child relationship and negatively affect children’s development (Deater-Deckard, 2004; Holden, 2010).  Similarly, the degree of risk in a family’s environment (e.g., unsafe neighborhoods, single motherhood, teen motherhood), commonly measured as cumulative risk, has been associated with higher parenting stress (Anderson, 2008; Deater-Deckard, 2004; Huang et al., 2014; Webster-Stratton, 1990) and more negative child outcomes (Sameroff et al., 1997).  Yet, the current literature does not look at the affects of cumulative risk on the associations between parenting stress and child outcomes. It could be that the influence of parenting stress on child behavior problems is stronger in the context of more family risk.  Therefore, this study investigated how parenting stress and family cumulative risk are associated, independently and interactively, with children’s internalizing and externalizing problems over time among a low-income sample. Parenting Stress, Cumulative Risk, and Children’s Internalizing and Externalizing Problems in a Sample of Low-Income Families Participants and Procedures Measures Background Results  The results of this study revealed that higher parenting stress was associated with higher child internalizing and externalizing problems over time. Similarly, more family risk was associated with more child internalizing and externalizing problems over time. These findings are consistent with previous research (e.g., Sameroff et al., 1997; Stone et al., 2015) that found higher parenting stress or more family risk was linked to negative child outcomes.  Moderation analyses showed that cumulative risk marginally moderated the association between parenting stress and internalizing problems over time, but no interaction was found for externalizing problems. This suggests that the positive association between parenting stress and child internalizing problems over time was stronger in the context of more family risk compared to less family risk.  Further, the absence of an interaction between parenting stress and cumulative risk in predicting externalizing problems at Time 2 suggests that the level of cumulative risk does not make a difference in the association between parenting stress and externalizing problems over time. Perhaps the type of family risk variables included in the cumulative risk index had a greater influence on the association between parenting stress and internalizing problems than parenting stress and externalizing problems.  The limitation of these findings is that the measurements of all variables relied on caregiver-reports, which could be biased. Also, these findings can only be generalized to low-income populations that are primarily minorities.  Future research should explore the influence of different ethnic groups on the associations between parenting stress and child outcomes and cumulative risk and child outcomes over time. Multiple reporters (e.g., parents, teacher, child) of all variables, especially child outcomes (e.g., internalizing), should also be included to discern reporter biases. Discussion References Achenbach, T.M. (1991). Manual for the Child Behavior Checklist/4-18 and 1991 Profile. Burlington, VT: University of Vermont Department of Psychiatry. Achenbach, T.M. (1992). Manual for the Child Behavior Checklist/2-3 and 1992 Profile. Burlington, VT: University of Vermont Department of Psychiatry. Anderson, L. S. (2008). Predictors of parenting stress in a diverse sample of parents of early adolescents in high-risk communities. Nursing Research, 57 (5), 340-350. doi:10.1097/01.NNR.0000313502.92227.87 Bachman, H. J., & Chase-Lansdale, P. L. (2005). Custodial grandmothers' physical, mental, and economic well-being: Comparisons of primary caregivers from low-income neighborhoods. Family Relations: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Applied Family Studies, 54 (4), 475-487. doi:10.1111/j.1741-3729.2005.00334.x Deater-Deckard, K. (2004). Parenting stress. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Derogatis, L.R. (2000). Brief Symptom Inventory 18, Administration, Scoring, and Procedures Manual. Minneapolis: National Computer Systems. Hayes, A. F. (2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis. New York, NY: Guilford. Holden, G. W. (2010). Parenting: A dynamic perspective. (pp. 83-130). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. Huang, C. Y., Costeines, J., Kaufman, J. S., & Ayala, C. (2014). Parenting stress, social support, and depression for ethnic minority adolescent mothers: Impact on child development. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 23 (2), 255-262. doi:10.1007/s10826-013- 9807-1 Lohman, B. J., Pittman, L. D., Coley, R. L., & Chase-Lansdale, P. L. (2004). Welfare history, sanctions, and developmental outcomes among low-income children and youth. Social Service Review, 78 (1), 41-73. doi:10.1086/380767 Sameroff, A. J., Seifer, R., & Bartko, W. T. (1997). Environmental perspectives on adaptation during childhood and adolescence. In S. S. Luthar, J. A. Burack, D. Cicchetti, J. R. Weisz, S. S. Luthar, J. A. Burack,... J. R. Weisz (Eds.), Developmental psychopathology: Perspectives on adjustment, risk, and disorder (pp. 507-526). New York, NY, US: Cambridge University Press. Stone, L. L., Mares, S. W., Otten, R., Engels, R. E., & Janssens, J. M. (2015). The co- development of parenting stress and childhood internalizing and externalizing problems. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, doi:10.1007/s10862-015- 9500-3 Webster-Stratton, C. (1990). Stress: A potential disruptor of parent perceptions and family interactions. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 19 (4), 302-312. doi:10.1207/s15374424jccp1904_2 Table 1. Descriptive Statistics and Bivariate Correlations among Study Variables  Correlational analyses revealed that parenting stress and cumulative risk were positively correlated with child internalizing and externalizing problems at Time 1 and 2. Parenting stress and cumulative risk were also positively correlated. All four child outcomes were intercorrelated as expected.  In a linear regression, after controlling for child age group, child gender, type of mother (i.e., biological mother vs. not), as well as the corresponding child outcome at Time 1, parenting stress was positively associated with internalizing ( b =.07, t = 2.39, p =.017) and externalizing ( b =.07, t = 2.63, p =.009) problems at Time 2.  Similarly, in a separate linear regression, after controlling for child age group, child gender, type of mother (i.e., biological mother vs. not), and the corresponding child outcome at Time 1, cumulative risk was positively associated with internalizing ( b =.08, t = 3.68, p <.001) and externalizing ( b =.06, t = 2.93, p =.003) problems at Time 2.  Regression analyses testing for interactions were run using the PROCESS macro in SPSS (Hayes, 2013) to explore the influence of cumulative risk on the associations between parenting stress and child outcomes at Time 2 (i.e., externalizing and internalizing problems). All analyses controlled for child outcomes at Time 1, age group, type of mother, and child gender. One interaction was significant at a trend level (see below). Kristina Kochanova, Laura D. Pittman, & Emily E. Stewart Northern Illinois University  Please contact Kristina Kochanova with comments or questions about this poster at kristinakochanova@gmail.com. Notes. All correlations are significant at p <.001. VariablesMean (SD)RangeCorrelations 123456 1. Parenting Stress Time 12.83 (0.86)1-5-- 2. Cumulative Risk2.71 (1.07)0-6.14-- 3. Child Internalizing Problems Time 1.00 (1)-1.64-4.69.35.14-- 4. Child Externalizing Problems Time 1.00 (1)-1.63-4.04.38.15.69-- 5. Child Internalizing Problems Time 2.00 (1)-1.47-4.61.22.15.49.38-- 6. Child Externalizing Problems Time 2.00 (1)-1.53-5.08.27.15.38.57.66--  As shown in Figure 1, cumulative risk moderated, at a trend level, the association between parenting stress and internalizing problems ( b =.047, t = 1.93, p =.053) at Time 2. Specifically, parenting stress was strongly associated with internalizing problems ( b =.11, t = 2.83, p =.005) when more risk was present, but no association was found when there was lower cumulative risk ( b =.01, t =.14 p =.89).  The interaction between parenting stress and cumulative risk was not significant in predicting externalizing problems ( b =.01, t =.45, p =.65) at Time 2.