Medical debt burdens families and individuals and can pose a major barrier to financial security. According to the National Consumer Law Center, medical debt is the leading driver of personal bankruptcy and has become a crisis across the nation.

In 2022, 17.8% of Arkansans had medical debt that had gone to collection, higher than the national rate of 12.5%. Among counties in the state, the rates were highest in Poinsett (36%), Chicot and Clay (both 32%), and lowest in Saline (10%) and Pulaski (12%). Nationally and in Arkansas there was a racial/ethnic disparity in this indicator, with the share burdened by medical debt in communities of color higher (22% in Arkansas, 15% in the nation) than that in white communities (17% in Arkansas, 11% in the nation).

Communities were designated as white or of color based on zip code and a threshold of 60%. Therefore, a community where 60% or more of residents are people of color was considered a community of color. People of color were defined as those who are African American, Hispanic, Asian or Pacific Islander, American Indian or Alaska Native, another race other than white, or multiracial. The data on debt comes from a 4 percent nationally representative panel of deidentified, consumer-level records from a major credit bureau.