Project Summary/Abstract - Investigator Development Core The Investigator Development Core (IDC) has as its overarching objective to support a pilot project program focused on cardiometabolic disease, risk factors, and complications, that will promote the research career development of post-doctoral fellows and early stage investigators, particularly those from underrepresented groups. The IDC will include a diverse group of experienced mentors with leadership roles in UCLA and UCI training programs and a core team of methods experts in conducting health disparities and/or racial/ethnic minority health research, who collectively will form the Mentoring and Methods Leadership Collaborative within the IDC. The persistence framework and its application, that identified early research experiences, active learning, and learning community participation as determinants of persistence, spurring academic success, is the framework informing our approach to accelerate the workforce to advance cardiometabolic equity research. The IDC will have the following aims: Aim 1: Support a pilot project grants program with a minimum of six new innovative disparities-focused research projects per year aimed at improving the health of communities and contributing to the science of eliminating cardiometabolic disparities. Aim 2: Provide structured mentorship for junior and mid-level faculty seeking independent, NIH-funded research careers focused on reducing chronic disease in populations at risk for disparities. Aim 3: Provide comprehensive methodological and statistical support to center scientists, including qualitative data methods (e.g., focus groups and cognitive interviews) and quantitative data methods for developing, implementing, analyzing, and disseminating organizational and individual behavioral or other interventions. Aim 4: Provide exposure to state-of-the-science analytic methods and approaches for the analysis of secondary data to understand factors that affect chronic disease, particularly for racial/ethnic minorities. Aim 5: Assist center scientists with the use or modification of existing measures or developing new behavioral or social measurement tools for use in diverse populations represented in Southern California, particularly those of low socioeconomic status or other societal disadvantages. Aim 6: Maintain a process for tracking the evolution of mentees from pilot to independent investigators, using the UC END-DISPARITIES IDC semi-annual reporting procedure. An aspirational goal of the overall center is to establish the center as a national resource for cardiometabolic research in multi-ethnic populations. The IDC will contribute to this goal by increasing the number of underrepresented pilot project investigators, and ultimately the number of underrepresented scientists who are independent investigators, advance in career stage, and become NIMHD disparities framework trained mentors who can support the next generation of cardiometabolic equity...