PROJECT SUMMARY / ABSTRACT: ADMINISTRATIVE CORE The mission of the Deep South Center to Reduce Disparities in Chronic Diseases is to promote health equity and reduce the burden of cardiometabolic diseases, including obesity, diabetes, and hypertension, across the Deep South. The Center will focus on the prevention, treatment and management of cardiometabolic diseases among Black Americans and low-income populations who suffer disproportionately from these conditions in this region. The Center is unified thematically through the application of the precision public health approach across the care continuum to achieve health equity. The Administrative Core will provide oversight, governance, evaluation, and coordination of Center activities to assure the effectiveness of the Center in meeting its overall goals and objectives, which are to: 1) advance scientific knowledge that reduces health disparities related to cardiometabolic diseases in the Deep South (through research and pilot projects); 2) develop a diverse research workforce committed to addressing these regional disparities (through the Investigator Development Core); and 3) engage academic and nonacademic stakeholders to foster evidence- based interventions that have potential for regional sustainability (through the Community Engagement Core). Operationally, the Administrative Core will be responsible for the scientific coordination and fiscal operations of the Center, and it will oversee and manage functions, resources, and communications conducted within and beyond the Center. These operational activities will be conducted in service to the scientific and public health mission of the Center and will be achieved through the Core’s leadership in guiding the Center and its investigators toward a new level of intellectual synergy and collaboration within and across academic institutions affiliated with this Center as well as with nonacademic partners throughout the region. The Center’s Administrative Core will be led by Drs. Andrea Cherrington and Gareth Dutton who will be supported by an Executive Committee comprised of leadership from all four of the academic institutions partnered for this Center, which includes the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), Pennington Biomedical Research Center (PBRC), University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC), and Tuskegee University (TU). In making decisions regarding the Center and its Administrative Core, Core leaders will rely on input and consensus recommendations from this Executive Committee, together with recommendations from the Center’s Community Advisory Board and Scientific Advisory Board.