2025 County Health Rankings & Roadmaps Report Shows Continuing Health Disparities Across Arkansas

The 2025 County Health Rankings & Roadmaps report reveals significant differences in health across Arkansas counties. While some counties stand out as among the healthiest in the nation, others continue to face steep barriers shaped by economic and social conditions.

The annual report, released Wednesday, March 19, differs from past installments in several ways. Notably, the 2025 report no longer assigns counties individual ranks for comparison. Instead, counties are now grouped based on similar health conditions, making it easier to compare counties in Arkansas to counties in other states facing similar challenges.

Another change is the introduction of a new model for understanding what shapes health and well-being, emphasizing the role of power and societal rules. The new model includes measures divided into four groups:

• Population Health and Well-Being. These measures represent how well and how long people live, encompassing physical, mental, and social health. The report continues to highlight persistent gaps in health outcomes, demonstrating that not all communities have the same opportunities to thrive.
• Community Conditions. These measures reflect how factors such as affordable housing, access to nutritious food, and economic stability shape daily life and influence long-term health.
• Societal Rules. This component of the model reflects both the written and unwritten rules that determine how resources and opportunities are distributed. Written rules include those formalized in policies and laws, while worldviews and norms reflect unwritten rules.
• Power. These measures relate to the ability to influence decisions that shape health outcomes. The report emphasizes that when power is concentrated in the hands of a few, it can perpetuate disparities. However, communities that organize and advocate for policy changes can shift the balance, ensuring that health-promoting resources are more evenly distributed.

In the Population Health and Well-Being group, each county is assigned a health status ranging from least healthy in the U.S. to healthiest in the U.S. Benton County is among the healthiest counties in the U.S., with Saline and Washington counties also among the healthier counties in the U.S., as shown in the first map below. Arkansas counties that are among the least healthy in the U.S. are Desha, Lee, and Phillips, all located in the Delta. Generally, counties across the Delta region and the southern half of the state have health statuses near the lower end of the scale.

In the Community Conditions group, Benton County again is among the healthiest counties in the U.S., as shown in the map below. Boone, Faulkner, Lonoke, Saline, and Washington counties are also among the healthier counties in the U.S., while Lee and Phillips counties are among the least healthy in the U.S.

County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, a program of the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, also provides comparisons between Arkansas and the U.S. average for each measure.

For the Population Health and Well-Being group, the first table below shows how Arkansas compares nationally on certain summary measures and identifies the best- and worst-performing Arkansas counties for those measures.