Research Article
Exposure, Resources, and Place: Associations of Perceived Weather-Related Challenges, Financial Hardship, and Residential Context with Environmental Worry in the United States
McNeill C1, Ponce-Garcia E2, Garrison MEB3*, Yadav SK4, Bushra N5 and Rohli RV6
1College of Nursing and Health Professions, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS, USA
2College of Medicine, University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, OK USA
3School of Human Environmental Sciences, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR USA
4Department of Geography, Texas A&M University, TX, USA
5Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, Coastal Studies Institute, Louisiana Office of State Climatology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA
6Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, College of the Coast & Environment, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA.
2College of Medicine, University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, OK USA
3School of Human Environmental Sciences, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR USA
4Department of Geography, Texas A&M University, TX, USA
5Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, Coastal Studies Institute, Louisiana Office of State Climatology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA
6Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, College of the Coast & Environment, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA.
*Corresponding author:Garrison MEB, 210 HOEC Bldg, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701 USA. E-mail Id: megarris@uark.edu
Article Information:Submission: 01/09/2026; Accepted: 26/10/2026; Published: 29/10/2026
Copyright: © 2026 McNeill, C. et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Environmental worry is an important affective dimension of environmental risk perception, yet relatively little research has examined its simultaneous associations with perceived environmental conditions, financial hardship, and residential context. Guided by environmental psychology, social vulnerability theory, and place scholarship, we examine environmental worry using three conceptual domains: Exposure (Perceived Weather-Related Challenges), Resources (financial hardship), and Place (residential context). Using the 2024 4R-Stat Baseline Survey (N = 13,240) data, we examined differences in environmental worry across residential settings and U.S. regions and assessed the independent associations of demographic characteristics, financial hardship, and Perceived Weather-Related Challenges with environmental worry. Broad geographic region was not significantly associated with environmental
worry, whereas residential setting showed a clear gradient, with urban residents reporting higher environmental worry than suburban and rural residents. Perceived Weather-Related Challenges showed the largest standardized association with environmental worry, while financial hardship and residential setting were also associated with environmental worry. Younger respondents, women, and respondents from racial and ethnic minority groups reported higher environmental worry. Education was not significantly associated with environmental worry. The final model explained 8.1% of the variance; exploratory interaction terms jointly added only 0.4 percentage points. Because financial hardship is not equivalent to economic worry, these cross-sectional findings do not constitute a direct test of the finite-pool-of-worry hypothesis. The findings describe social and residential differences in environmental worry and identify questions for future research on Perceived Weather-Related Challenges, economic circumstances, and residential context.
Keywords:Environmental Worry; Financial Hardship; Perceived Weather-Related Challenges; Residential Context; Environmental Risk Perception