Interest in the effects of neighborhood context on individual wellbeing has increased in recent years. We now know that neighborhood conditions, such as poverty and deprivation, negatively impact residents. However, most of the extant work has taken an urban focus. Less is known about these processes in rural settings. Neighborhood conceptualizations, such as Census tracts and block groups, are standard in the urban neighborhood effects literature. Yet, rural neighborhoods differ from those in urban regions making it unclear how these conceptualizations would fit. This systematic review seeks to summarize how researchers have conceptualized and measured rural neighborhoods. Keyword searches were performed in a variety of databases to compile all relevant peer-reviewed articles. After examination, 19 articles fit the review criteria. Conceptualizations fell into five categories: administrative units, distance from home, town segments, local-actor mapped regions, and nongeographical self-definitions. Discussion of the merits of each for rural community research is provided. C

Children who live in poor rural communities have a somewhat different context for development from urban children. Rural in comparison to urban communities have higher poverty rates; greater isolation from key services, such as schools and health care; and parents have more service related jobs with nonstandard work schedules. These factors are associated with poverty but also can add additional stress on rural family life that can contribute to more chaotic living conditions for young children, including disorganization, instability, and unpredictability. This chapter reviews the literature and presents data to support the view that chaos in rural communities may be greater than in urban areas and may be a particularly important mediator of the relationship between poverty and children's development. Data are presented from the Family Life Project to further support the link between poverty, chaos, and children's early development.

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Research Findings Prior research with older urban children indicates that disadvantaged neighborhood context is associated with poorer early development, including poorer verbal ability, reading recognition, and achievement scores among children. Neighborhood disadvantage in rural communities and at younger age levels may also be related to development; however this relationship has received little examination. In this study we utilize data from the Family Life Project, a representative sample of babies born to mothers in poor rural counties in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, to address questions related to the relationship between neighborhood context (disadvantage and safety) and children’s early language development. We examine mediation of this relationship by child care quality. We also examine geographic isolation and collective socialization as moderators of the relationship between neighborhood context and child care quality. Results indicated that while neighborhood disadvantage did not predict children’s development or child care quality, neighborhood safety predicted children’s receptive language, with child care quality a partial mediator of this relationship. Collective socialization but not geographic isolation moderated the relationship between neighborhood safety and child care quality. Practice or Policy Implications for policy, practice, and future research are discussed, including improving community safety through community policing, neighborhood watch, and social networks and increasing access to quality child care.