Phoxonic crystal as a means of guiding and confining electromagnetic and elastic waves has already attracted attentions. Lack of exact knowledge on how these two types of waves interact inside this crystal and how electromagnetic wave evolves through this interaction has increased this field complexity. Here we explain how an elastic wave affects an electromagnetic wave through photoelasticity and interface displacement mechanisms in a phoxonic crystal slab waveguide. We obtain a master equation which can describe electromagnetic wave evolution. In this equation we define a coupling parameter and calculate its value for different modes of electromagnetic and elastic waves and show it vanishes for some types of modes. Finally we solve the master equation for a typical phoxonic crystal slab waveguide and illustrate the electromagnetic wave evolution.