Why

What

Who

Childhood obesity in Arkansas has been steadily rising since 2000.

Increases physical activity and improves nutrition through physical education curricula, equipment, after-school programs, and promoting family involvement.

Approximately 467,000 children kindergarten through 5th grade are in public schools in Arkansas.

For a $27.3 million investment over three years covering 468,698 kindergarten thru 5th graders ($58 per child)

We use a variety of data sources to tailor our analysis to the location and to make our estimates as accurate as possible. However, sometimes data is unavailable, either because it has not been collected, or because it is not shared publicly. We encourage government agencies and other organizations to share their de-identified data online and researchers to prioritize the following gaps in the data.

Test Score Distribution - To calculate the shift in test scores, we used a distribution of scores for the state of Texas, since we had used that information for the corresponding San Antonio model. Ideally, distributions more pertinent to Arkansas and the Independent School Districts would have been utilized but were unavailable.

Local Mortality and Morbidity - Baseline rates in mortality, diabetes, asthma, hypertension, stroke, and depression were taken from the state of Arkansas, even when calculating local estimates because local rates were unavailable.

Tax Rates - For local sales taxes,  the county and city sales tax rates were collected each school district, and averaged them to for state-level estimates. This average was applied to the local districts as well.

School Districts Across County Borders - In a few instances school districts were located in multiple counties. In this situations, districts were assigned to the county with a larger share of it's area.