Free Health Screenings and Bill Assistance Offered at Phillips Community College

The Arkansas Minority Health Commission and Entergy Arkansas brought LIHEAP bill assistance applications and free preventive health screenings to Phillips Community College in West Helena on Wednesday, a combined response to a county where 25.4% of families live in poverty and the federal crisis-assistance window closes April 30.

Households that attended needed to present a government-issued photo ID, a Social Security card or number for all household members 18 and older, documentation of all household income for the four weeks prior to applying, and a copy of their most recent electric bill or a lease agreement. LIHEAP, the federally funded Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, provides direct payment toward gas and electric utility bills for qualifying low-income households. Crisis assistance, the program's final funding tier of the season, remains available only through April 30 or until funds are exhausted, whichever comes first.

The health screening component offered blood pressure checks, glucose testing, cholesterol measurement, and body mass index assessments at no cost. Those services carry particular weight in a county where 51.3% of adults met the clinical definition of obesity as of 2025, a rate that far exceeds state and national benchmarks. The county's median household income of $38,874 places it near the bottom of Arkansas's 75 counties.

The commission, whose statutory mandate is to assure all minority Arkansans equitable access to preventive health care, has organized similar outreach in Phillips County before. In November 2022, the AMHC held a community health forum at the Delta Cultural Center on 141 Cherry Street in Helena-West Helena, where health professionals presented county rankings documenting chronic disease rates, adult smoking, and limited access to healthy foods. Wednesday's college event continued that pattern: single-day, event-based service delivery rather than a permanent clinical or assistance infrastructure.

That pattern is harder to ignore given the county's trajectory. Phillips County's population has dropped from 22,000 to roughly 18,000 in recent years, one of the steepest declines in the state, a contraction that shrinks the local tax base and limits the county's capacity to sustain independent health services. State officials have not publicly committed to any structural expansion of health access in the county beyond periodic commission events.

Residents who missed Wednesday's event can still apply for LIHEAP crisis assistance through the Arkansas Department of Energy and Environment's network of community-based organizations serving Phillips County, but with April 30 approaching and prior years seeing funds exhausted before the official deadline, urgency is real. The program served roughly 29,300 Arkansas heating households and nearly 25,000 cooling households in fiscal year 2024, and demand in the Delta consistently outpaces the statewide average.