2023 ARKANSAS CIVIC HEALTH INDEX

Abstract

The main source of information in this report is periodic supplements?on topics suchas voting, civic engagement, and volunteering?to the U.S Census Bureau?s CurrentPopulation Survey (CPS), which poses questions to approximately 60,000 householdsaround the U.S. From that data, this report focuses on: 1) levels of political, civic, andsocial engagement among Arkansans, 2) comparisons of Arkansas with U.S. nationalaverages, and 3) characteristics that may be associated with participation, such asrace/ethnicity, gender, age, income, and education. The survey findings reported here,unless otherwise noted, are obtained from the CPS data, which cover the years 1972through 2020, and the precise year for data is noted in each section. Other sourcesof numerical data in the report are J. O. Ajayi and M. Kalulu, Access Arkansas: Countyand City Web Transparency (4th ed., 2023);1 the National Study of Learning, Voting,and Engagement; the American National Election Studies 2020 time-series study;data on local newspaper availability from the University of North Carolina HussmanSchool of Journalism and Media; and data on ownership of local radio stations from theU.S. Federal Communications Commission. Moreover, the report presents qualitativeresults of interviews with Arkansas nonprofit leaders, civic leaders, public-engagementprofessionals, and residents about coalitions across sectors to address social issues,as well as political, civic, and social engagement and local civic spaces. While thereport?s quantitative findings are based on a scientifically valid and representativesample of residents, each estimate features a small margin of error; as a result, smalldifferences in percentages may not be statistically significant.