ABSTRACT Numerous reports have called for new interventions to prevent obesity and mitigate the current high rates of obesity and their projected rise. In order to achieve these aims, a diverse biomedical workforce in the United States is needed, and this need is particularly pronounced among individuals from underrepresented groups. In the 2016 report “Charting the Future Together: The NHLBI Strategic Vision,” the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) calls for developing and sustaining the diversity of a scientific workforce capable of accomplishing this mission. Increasing the size and diversity of the biomedical research workforce in the field of obesity health disparities is a critical component of achieving NHLBI’s mission, and is essential to meet the national goal of reducing the proportion of adults who are obese to 33.9% by 2020. For the past four years, our site – Obesity Health Disparities (OHD PRIDE) - has been one of seven PRIDE sites funded to develop and implement a comprehensive research training and mentoring program for early-career faculty members from groups that are underrepresented in the biomedical sciences (R25HL126145). In this renewal application, we describe our strategy for implementing and evaluating a refined evidence-based, culturally- and environmentally-relevant research training and mentoring program specifically targeting eligible early-career faculty who are employed and/or trained at HBCUs. OHD PRIDE will consist of five phases: (1) an initial 10- day intensive face-to-face summer program; (2) ongoing web-based Writing Accountability Groups (WAGs) during the academic year; (3) a 3-day mid-year mentored meeting; (4) a culminating 4-day face-to-face summer program; and (5) an expansion of our ongoing alumni program, designed to create a sustainable network of intellectual and social support beyond the program’s research training experience that builds on our existing alumni. Our proposed program will continue to provide skills training in community-based interventions and secondary data analyses to address obesity disparities. !

PROJECT NARRATIVE The OHD PRIDE Program is designed to train and mentor underrepresented minority early career faculty by enhancing their skills in research, grant writing, and scientific writing. It is expected that the work of OHD PRIDE will result in an increased number of underrepresented minority faculty having independent research careers focused on obesity disparities and chronic diseases related to obesity.