Child Development, July/August 2002, Volume 73, Number 4, Pages 1238–1248 The Environment of Poverty: Multiple Stressor Exposure, Psychophysiological Stress, and Socioemotional Adjustment Gary W. Evans and Kimberly English The one in five children growing up in poverty in America have elevated risk for socioemotional difficulties. One contributing factor to their elevated risk may be exposure to multiple physical and psychosocial stressors. This study demonstrated that 8- to 10-year-old, low-income, rural children ( N = 287) confront a wider array of multiple physical (substandard housing, noise, crowding) and psychosocial (family turmoil, early childhood separation, community violence) stressors than do their middle-income counterparts. Prior research on self- reported distress among inner-city minority children is replicated and extended among low-income, rural White children with evidence of higher levels of self- and parent-reported psychological distress, greater difficulties in self-regulatory behavior (delayed gratification), and elevated psychophysiological stress (resting blood pres- sure, overnight neuroendocrine hormones). Preliminary mediational analyses with cross-sectional data sug- gest that cumulative stressor exposure may partially account for the well-documented, elevated risk of socio- emotional difficulties accompanying poverty. INTRODUCTION Although a fairly large developmental literature has accumulated on the socioemotional correlates of pov- erty (for reviews, see Duncan & Brooks-Gunn, 1997; Luthar, 1999; McLoyd, 1998; McLoyd, Ceballo, & Mangelsdorf, 1996), there are important gaps in the knowledge base that the present study sought to ad- dress. First, little is known about the actual conditions that poor children face in their daily lives. This is espe- cially true for the rural poor, who constitute the ma- jority of impoverished children in the United States. With some notable exceptions (Brody et al., 1994; Con- ger et al., 1992; Werner & Smith, 1982), developmental research on poverty has focused on inner-city, non- White samples of children and youth. These studies consistently reveal that low-income urban children experience more stressful events than do their middle- class, urban counterparts (Attar, Guerra, & Tolan, 1994; Brooks-Gunn, Klebanov, & Liaw, 1995; Brown, Cowen, Hightower, & Lotyczewski, 1986; Dubow, Tisak, Causey, Hryshko, & Reid, 1991; Rutter, 1981). These childhood stressful life-event studies focused on psychosocial stressors such as family turmoil (e.g., interpersonal conflict) and disruption (e.g., marital separation or divorce) or adverse social circum- stances (e.g., violence) (Compas, 1987; Gore & Ecken- rode, 1996; Rutter & Sandberg, 1992). However, chil- dren grow up in microsystems that consist of both physical and psychosocial characteristics that can im- pinge upon healthy socioemotional development (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998; Wachs, 2000). There is a small developmental literature that suggests that crowding, noise, and substandard housing conditions, respectively, can impinge on children’s socioemo- tional development (Bradley & Caldwell, 1984; Evans, Kliewer, & Martin, 1991; Parke, 1978; Saegert, 1982; Wachs, 1992; Wachs & Gruen, 1982; Weinstein & David, 1987; Wohlwill & Heft, 1987). The literature on poverty and socioemotional development has ignored the physical environment. Although it seems intu- itively obvious that low-income children are exposed not only to more psychosocial stressors but also to more impoverished physical living conditions, little data are available to substantiate this belief. There are, how- ever, some data that indicate poorer quality housing conditions among low-income families (Mayer, 1997). Investigators of income differentials in stressor ex- posure combine psychosocial stressful events and cir- cumstances into a single, additive index of exposure. We hypothesize instead that the accumulation of ex- posure to multiple physical and psychosocial stres- sors, rather than singular stressor exposure, is a key, unique aspect of the environment of poverty. It is the confluence of multiple demands from the immediate environment, both physical and psychosocial, that may lead to socioemotional difficulties associated with childhood poverty. Thus, rather than assess an additive index of stressor exposure, the present study employed a cumulative stressor metric adopted from the cumulative risk literature. Exposure to zero risk factors or one risk factor has negligible impact on chil- dren, whereas exposure to two or more risks has cumulative, adverse psychological impact (Barocas, © 2002 by the Society for Research in Child Development, Inc. All rights reserved. 0009-3920/2002/7304-0017