Problem/Objective: The California Tobacco Control Evaluation Center (TCEC) provides Technical Assistance to more than 100 local and competitive tobacco control projects funded by California's Tobacco Tax. All the projects are expected to address Priority Populations – groups that are particularly targeted by the tobacco industry and that have health inequalities associated with tobacco use. The populations include African-Americans, Hispanic/Latino, Asia/Pacific Islander, Low Socioeconomic Status, and others.

Methods: To help the Tobacco Control projects evaluate the interventions targeting these groups, TCEC has used several methods to learn about culturally appropriate evaluation approaches, including talking with community agencies that serve the priority populations, interviewing researchers who have collected data from these groups, and reviewing literature on culturally appropriate evaluation. For example, we interviewed Dr. Vickie Krenz of California State University, Fresno, about her foundational research of smoking prevalence among Hmong in communities across California. We also studied reports on the outcomes of cognitive pre-tests of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's adult tobacco surveys for Hispanics, and Alaska Natives.

Results: Our research on this front is ongoing and we will continue during the spring of 2007 to augment findings and principles we've developed so far.

Conclusions: The poster will describe the result of this work and provide guidelines that participants can apply to their own projects, including a tips and tools sheet for conducting culturally appropriate evaluations.