PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT: PLANNING AND EVALUATION CORE The purpose of the Partnership for Native American Cancer Prevention’s (NACP) Planning and Evaluation Core is to monitor and evaluate all partnership activities on a continuous basis as well as provide the oversight of the selection of new Research Projects. This Core serves each of the NACP components ensuring that they maintain a scope of work that demonstrates progress toward the overall goals for this 16- year partnership between the Northern Arizona University (NAU) and the University of Arizona Cancer Center (UACC). The Planning and Evaluation Core engages five entities: NACP’s Executive Committee (EC) made up of the multiple Principal Investigators (MPIs), Core Co-Leaders, the professional evaluator and Partnership Managers; the Internal Advisory Committee (IAC) consisting of research and education leaders from both institutions outside the direct responsibilities of NACP; the Community Advisory Committee (CAC), composed of community members that hold leadership positions within tribes; the Program Steering Committee (PSC), an external advisory board comprised of nationally recognized experts in cancer research, health disparities including Native American-specific cancer disparities, and training of biomedical researchers, and the officers and leaders of the National Cancer Institute’s Center to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities (CRCHD) and its Partnerships to Advance Cancer Health Equity (PACHE) program. The EC, IAC, CAC, PSC, and CRCHD will provide expert, unbiased, rigorous evaluation of partnership progress and recommend improvements and new directions as NACP evolves. The Planning and Evaluation Core will focus on the following Specific Aims: Aim 1. Build and maintain an interactive and comprehensive feedback system using mixed methods data to allow leadership to employ data-driven formative development and summative evaluation of all NACP components. Aim 2. Engage the IAC in internal planning and assessing of NACP’s research and core activities to align and leverage the strengths of NAU and the UACC. Aim 3. Apply the unbiased and expert external evaluation and guidance of the CAC, PSC, and PACHE to continually improve the partnership’s efforts, across all components, to reach its overall goals. Aim 4. Utilize the IAC, CAC, and PSC in the unbiased selection of new Research Projects and monitoring of their scientific progress. Expected Impact: The goals of NACP are to 1) reduce the cancer burden within the Native American population through research and community engagement; 2) expand the number of Native American investigators working in cancer research; and 3) and increase the total number of investigators focused on cancer health disparities within the Native American communities of Arizona.