Child Developmental Trajectories in Adversity: Environmental Embedding and Developmental Cascades in Contexts of Risk

The roots of health and illness, and inequality in outcomes between and within populations, lie in our earliest experiences and environments. Developmental changes in an individual child are influenced by their genetics, environment (including prenatal environment), and exposure to risk and supportive factors. When environments are adverse (or toxic), normative developmental processes may be interrupted. To tease apart some of the complexities inherent in our understanding of child development in the context of adversity, this chapter starts with an outline of the current literature relevant to the conceptualization of development over the life course. It then discusses certain facets of adversity, as broken down into individual risk factors and outcomes. We then examine how such risk factors and outcomes interact over time to produce child outcomes. We conclude with the potential impact of contexts marked by multiple forms of adversity on individual and population health.