PROJECT SUMMARY – COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND OUTREACH CORE. The Mississippi Center for Clinical and Translational Research (MCCTR) Community Engagement and Outreach (CEO) Core seeks to build on its past successes by (1) increasing its presence within the State of Mississippi through additional partners and the number of geographic regions in which it works; (2) establishing and administering a MCCTR Practice- Based Research Network (PBRN); (3) extending its influence in developing the careers of faculty members focusing on community-based participatory research; and (4) improving the quality and quantity of community- engaged research initiatives, both within Mississippi and throughout the nation. The CEO Core will be co-led by faculty members representing three of its partner institutions: Caroline Compretta, PhD (University of Mississippi Medical Center); Holly Huye, PhD (University of Southern Mississippi); and Wendy White, PhD (Tougaloo College). Supporting their efforts will be an expanded Community Advisory Board, along with taskforces and ad hoc content-specific teams to more efficiently accommodate (1) effective development and delivery of CEO Core initiatives; (2) timely responses to MCCTR and CEO Core stakeholders and community members; and (3) enhancements to professional development initiatives for investigators pursuing community-engaged research. A significant expansion of the CEO Core activities will be the participation of the Mississippi State University Extension Service (MSES) on the CEO Core's Translational Communication Taskforce, co-led by David Buys, PhD. Additionally, Victor Sutton, PhD, Director of the Mississippi State Department of Health's Office of Preventive Health and Health Equity will co-lead the Translational CEnR Taskforce, and Lauren Bloodworth, PharmD, from the University of Mississippi Oxford campus, will co-lead the PBRN Working Group Taskforce. The CEO Core will work closely with the MCCTR's other cores and its Pilot Projects Program to achieve the following specific aims: (1) Enhance and extend outreach activities to engage relevant community groups, researchers, MSES agents, and MCCTR stakeholders to identify and address community health priorities in rural and health disparate populations; (2) Extend research capacity within community-academic partnerships by providing training on community-based participatory research principles that focus on active engagement with Mississippi's urban and rural communities; (3) Establish and promote a CEO Core “Community/Academic/Clinical/Research Network” to facilitate bidirectional communication and research opportunities among stakeholders, including the MCCTR PBRN, addressing community health issues in rural and health disparate populations.