To assist the committee in addressing its charge, the committee gathered information from several resources both within and outside of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This appendix describes the committee's charge and briefly addresses the types of information that the committee requested and received from those resources.

The Committee on Cancer Research Among Minorities and the Medically Underserved was charged with evaluating and critiquing the efforts of NIH's cancer research agenda for minority and medically underserved populations. The committee was charged with three specific tasks: (1) review the status of cancer research relative to minorities at the various institutes, centers, and divisions of NIH to evaluate the relative share of resources allocated to cancer in minorities (including a review of NIH's ability to prioritize its cancer research agenda for minorities and the role of minority scientists in decision making on research priorities); (2) examine how well research results are communicated and applied to cancer prevention and treatment programs for minorities and the adequacy of understanding of survivorship issues that uniquely affect minority communities; and (3) obtain an understanding of the adequacy of NIH procedures for equitable recruitment and retention of minorities in clinical trials.