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National Organizations

ACHIEVE Communities

ACHIEVE > Longview, Washington

Longview, Washington

Community Vision/Mission

The mission of the Longview ACHIEVE project is to promote healthy children and adults through policy and environmental changes designed to increase physical activity, access to nutritious foods, and freedom from tobacco through collaboration, inclusiveness, building on current success, use of prevention strategies, and implementation of best practices.

Activities

“Until Longview gives every man, woman, and child within its limits an opportunity to live happily, to improve mind, soul, and body, and to have healthful surroundings, honest work to do, and a home in which to live, Longview has an unfinished task.” - R.A. Long, 1925 at the dedication of the Longview Library

Community Tools & Resources

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Longview is situated between Seattle, Washington and Portland, Oregon offering residents a rural lifestyle with year round opportunities for recreation. Longview is the largest city in Cowlitz County and is located on the Columbia River. The county’s population is 100,400 and Longview’s population in 2007 was 37,584. The racial/ethnic breakdown is 84.9 percent white or Caucasian, 9.7 percent Hispanic/Latino, 2.1 percent Asian, and 1.3 percent other. The adult population over 25 years of age in Longview is 25,449. Almost 82 percent of adults are high school graduates or higher and 14.1 percent have at least a bachelor 's degree. Eighteen percent of families (24.8% of all individuals) live below the poverty level compared to 13.3 percent in the nation as a whole. The net annual population growth in Longview is slower than that of Washington State. Females make up 51.8 percent of the population, and 8.6 percent of households speak a language other than English in the home.

Longview is a community dependent on a natural resources economy and has an annual unemployment rate higher than state or national figures (13.1%, August 2009). In the past year alone, 2,300 jobs were lost. Manufacturing job losses at the turn of the century have been replaced with lower paying jobs. Based on 2000 inflation adjusted dollars, the median household income in Longview was $34,798 compared to the national level of $50,007.

Deaths due to chronic disease are higher in Cowlitz County than state averages. Risk factors for developing diabetes or complications of diabetes are common among adults in Cowlitz County. Residents have similar prevalence rates to the state for insufficient activity and high cholesterol, and a higher prevalence rate than the state for overweight/obesity, smoking, and hypertension. The overall impact on Longview and Cowlitz County is higher healthcare costs and shorter lives for residents. While the life expectancy for Americans has continued to rise over the last 10 years, there has been little or no change in Cowlitz County.