Project Abstract The purpose of the proposed project, through the Nurse Anesthetist Traineeship (NAT) Program, is to educate and train nurse anesthetists for the labor force that serve rural and underserved areas of Arizona. The specific goals of the project are to: 1) manage and award 100 % of NAT traineeship funds to nurse anesthesia students, giving priority for funding to students from and/or intend to practice in rural and medically underserved areas; 2) continue wide-ranging education and training for nurse anesthesia students, at all training levels in regards to the opioid epidemic; including the developmental history of the opioid crisis, risk factors for abuse, alternative strategies for pain management - such as opioid free anesthesia; opioid sparing techniques, regional anesthesia and nerve blocks; multimodal analgesia, and adjunctive non-pharmacological techniques with evaluation of the program; 3) inclusion of didactic, simulation and clinical experiences for anesthesia-based treatments to improve mental health; 4) requirement of incoming students to obtain National Provider Identification (NPI) numbers for monitoring of effectiveness. The traineeship funds requested in this application will be used to provide tuition support to qualified nurse anesthesia students, with priority given to students from and/or intending to practice in rural and medically underserved areas affected by the opioid epidemic, areas with poor access to mental health care and those willing to attain specialty training in alternative strategies for pain management as paramount importance. The Nurse Anesthesia program at the University of Arizona is a post-BSN to Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program. It is a full-time 36- month program of study requiring 85 credit hours for graduation. In 2019, the $15,238 of NAT funding provided partial support to 41 Nurse Anesthesia students. The current program tuition is the same for instate and out of state students at $102,000. The rigor of the program requires full-time study with extremely limited ability to work outside of training. As a new program, we have had 3 small cohorts graduate, of these, 62% have remained in Arizona and 61% work in HPSAs nationwide. A majority of clinical instruction is completed in facilities that serve rural and medically underserved populations as only a little over a quarter of the counties in Arizona are not designated medically underserved. Students exclaim they want to return to their rural communities once they have gained experience as a Nurse Anesthetist for a couple of years prior to being independent. A statutory funding preference is requested as the traineeships will substantially benefit rural or underserved populations or help meet public health nursing needs in state and local health departments. A special consideration is also requested as the traineeship will substantially benefit health professional shortage areas of the state of Arizona. The application also supports HHS’s priority to combat the opioid epidemic and mental health care as a mechanism to deliver health care services to rural and medically-underserved populations. ABOR, University of Arizona College of Nursing1 of 1