The mission of the Center for American Indian and Rural Health Equity (CAIRHE) is to reduce significant health disparities in Indigenous and rural communities across Montana while developing early-career faculty into a multidisciplinary cohort of independent health equity investigators. The Center achieves its mission through community-based participatory research (CBPR) and public health interventions that are considerate of and consistent with communities’ cultural beliefs. Montana communities face severe health disparities that affect health equity and quality of life among its citizens. As the only center at Montana State University focusing on Indigenous and rural health, and as a research center for the state of Montana as designated by the Montana University System Board of Regents, CAIRHE will work during its COBRE Phase III period to combine rigorous science and interventions with thoughtful community engagement in its Pilot Projects Program and other studies conducted by Center faculty. The overarching aim of the Center’s COBRE Phase III grant is to continue to develop CAIRHE as a robust and sustainable multidisciplinary center for health equity research, and to apply the Center’s Career Guidance Plan and Sustainability Plan to increase the number of Center investigators achieving independent investigator status. The Center will continue to develop a critical mass of health equity researchers by hiring at least one additional Indigenous faculty investigator, by training early-career investigators in health research design and CBPR, and by training the next generation of Indigenous scholars locally and nationally. CAIRHE will expand the operations of its two cores toward sustainability beyond Phase III, when each will function as vital pieces of MSU’s research infrastructure with significant institutional support. First, during the period CAIRHE will enhance its collaborative Montana IDeA Community Engagement Core (CEC), shared with Montana INBRE at MSU, to support community-engaged research by a growing number of investigators across the university, and to create an online training program available nationwide. The CEC also will expand its use of the Health Education and Research Bus (HERB), serving rural and frontier communities across the state. Second, the Center will continue to expand translational biomedical research capacity within both the Center and the university at large through the Translational Biomarkers Core established during Phase I. As part of the Center’s broader Sustainability Plan, CAIRHE will continue to build its regional Health Equity Network of partners—including clinical organizations, public health agencies, foundations, and other stakeholders—in order to expand health equity research, collaboration, funding sources, dissemination, and implementation. New, large-scale collaborations, such as CAIRHE’s recent National Cancer Institute U54 center with the Huntsman Cancer Institute, titled HOPE & CAIRHE 2gether, will be another way that the Center will support its important work in the years ahead.

PROJECT NARRATIVE: Overall The mission of the Center for American Indian and Rural Health Equity (CAIRHE) is to reduce significant health disparities in Indigenous and rural communities across Montana while developing early-career faculty at Montana State University into a multidisciplinary cohort of independent health equity investigators. The Center achieves its mission through community-based participatory research (CBPR) and public health interventions that are considerate of and consistent with communities’ cultural beliefs.