COMMUNITY OUTREACH AND ENGAGEMENT: ABSTRACT Oklahoma has the fourth highest overall cancer mortality rate in the United States. High rates of poverty, lack of health insurance coverage, obesity and tobacco use, and low rates of cancer screening all contribute to the state’s excess cancer risk. Furthermore, Oklahoma’s cancer health disparities are strikingly higher for the state’s American Indian (AI), Black / African American (Black/AA), rural, and other underserved minority populations. The Stephenson Cancer Center (SCC), the only NCI-designated cancer center in Oklahoma, leads efforts to decrease the state's cancer burden through facilitating scientific discovery, and by engaging with patients and communities in the statewide catchment area. SCC's Community Outreach and Engagement (COE) Core is central in this effort. COE is guided by four interconnected Specific Aims: 1) to monitor and evaluate the Oklahoma Catchment Area (OKCA) cancer burden and disparities through surveillance of cancer incidence, mortality, survival, and risk factors; 2) to engage communities throughout the OKCA in bidirectional communication to stimulate planning of cancer research and control efforts; 3) to communicate community needs to SCC Leadership, Research Programs and the Clinical Trials Office / Protocol Review and Monitoring System to catalyze research focusing on high-priority cancers and cancer problems affecting the OKCA; and 4) to collaboratively implement and disseminate SCC cancer control activities and policies to reduce cancer burden throughout the OKCA and beyond. Under the direction of Mark Doescher, MD, MSPH, the SCC's Associate Director for Community Outreach and Engagement, and Dorothy Rhoades, MD, MPH (Kiowa), who is the SCC's Director of AI Cancer Research Initiatives, COE has achieved a strong record of creating and sustaining authentic partnerships with Oklahoma’s AI, Black/AA, rural, and other communities to address multiple cancer-related concerns. Increasingly, COE is applying its expertise to extend outreach to and collaboration with additional underserved communities in the OKCA, including the Hispanic/Latino/a. COE conducts surveillance to identify priority cancers and cancer problems having the heaviest impact on Oklahomans. COE community advisory boards enable community members to inform programmatic and research priorities for the SCC and its catchment area. COE increasingly links communities to training and education programs that diversify the cancer research workforce. Strategic plans for the next five years include expanding community-engaged research focused on addressing priority cancers across the OKCA, as guided by a logic model that includes short-, intermediate- and long-term metrics that are used to gauge progress and signal areas for future growth. COE’s cultivation of long-term, mutually beneficial partnerships with communities will continue to foster an environment that enables SCC to advance its vision to eliminate cancer ...