The overall objective for this proposed Nutrition Academic Award at the University of Nevada School of Medicine (UNSOM) will be to enhance the curriculum in nutrition to create new opportunities for students (medical, nutrition, exercise physiology/health ecology and nursing), residents, faculty, community preceptors and health professionals. Specifically, this proposal will provide the needed support to create, implement and evaluate a new coordinated, statewide nutrition curriculum which will emphasize interdisciplinary education in the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases (CVD), obesity, diabetes and other chronic diseases. Building on an established foundation utilizing problem- based learning in a generalist education setting for the training of primary care physicians, five new specific aims are proposed: l) to create an Interdisciplinary Nutrition Steering Committee, Statewide Nutrition Curriculum Task Force and 5 task oriented Working Groups; 2) to longitudinally enhance, track, and evaluate the introduction of a 4-year "nutrition theme" with targeted activities to identify and integrate nutrition principles, clinical practice skills and interdisciplinary perspectives in the existing medical school curriculum; 3) to extend our current Special Qualifications in Nutrition (SQ1N) Certification Program to 3 additional medical students and initiate programs for 3 graduate students (nutrition, exercise physiology/health ecology and nursing) per year; 4) to develop, implement and evaluate statewide training programs for health care professionals; and 5) to develop and test educational materials and methods for dissemination throughout our statewide university system with the goal of contributing to and learning from the consortium of other Awardees. At the end of this award, it is anticipated that new materials and methods will be successfully integrated into the UNSOM curriculum. The transportability and exportability of the proposed model and its components will be tested and refined in our own state (Reno, Las Vegas and rural sites) as an integrated extension of our program. The project will have benefitted by the collaborative efforts, support, ideas and directions provided by the Academic Award Program and successful training models can be disseminated to other schools.