HIV/AIDS

This Hybrid Type 1 cluster randomized trial will test the Peer-led Dynamic Choice HIV Prevention (DCP) intervention compared to standard of care.

The goal of this study is to test the effectiveness of ADELANTE on viral suppression among Latinos with HIV and viral non-suppression. Participants will receive ADELANTE (5-session, community health worker-delivered, problem-solving intervention) or enhanced care condition (ECC, 5 reminder phone calls). We will evaluate the overall effectiveness of ADELANTE compared with ECC on rates of viral suppression and emergency room visits and hospitalizations. Our hypothesis is that ADELANTE participants will achieve higher rates of viral suppression and will have lower rates of emergency room visits and hospitalizations compared with ECC at 12 months post-randomization.

Greater advances are needed in two separate but related areas in healthcare: 1) the Clinical Decision Support Systems that complement the EHR use in support of routine patient care, population management and disease management; and 2) the use of the point-of-care observational data from the provider-patient encounter that support realworld medical research and healthcare quality measure assessment. Real-world evaluations of treatments of chronic diseases in the context of comorbid conditions and special populations (minorities, women, mentally ill, and those with addiction) are limited. The purpose of the OPERA database is to help address this unmet need in clinical research.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficacy, acceptability, and safety of a simplified event-driven pre-exposure prophylaxis of HIV based on oral TAF/FTC in HIV-uninfected cisgender men who have sex with men (MSM). Primary objective: To assess the efficacy of emtricitabine 200 mg + tenofovir alafenamide 25 mg (F/TAF), taken 2 to 24 hours before sexual intercourse followed by a second dose 24 hours after the first intake, in reducing the risk of HIV acquisition in MSM relative to the background HIV incidence rate.

The purpose of this study is: 1. To develop a new mobile health (mHealth) system that will send text messages to remind both pregnant and non-pregnant women with HIV to adhere to their treatment plan (like keeping appointments, fillings prescriptions, and taking their medication) and address individual barriers to HIV care (like stigma, medical mistrust and resilience). 2. The intervention will also include patient navigation and motivational interviewing 2\) Investigators also want to see if the mHealth system is feasible, easily accepted and if it will impact patient health in a positive way.

The purpose of this study is to develop a pharmacovigilance (PV) surveillance program to monitor adverse pregnancy and infant outcomes, including the presence of congenital abnormalities, among HIV-positive and HIV-negative women and their infants at clinical sites affiliated with the International Epidemiology Databases to Evaluate consortium (IeDEA).

This study will test two active evidence-based "practice coaching" (PC) interventions to improve opioid treatment programs' (OTPs') provision and sustained implementation of on-site 1) HIV testing and linkage to care and 2) HIV/Hepatitis C virus (HCV) testing and linkage to care among patients seeking/receiving substance use disorder treatment. Aims are: Aim 1: To evaluate the effectiveness of the PC interventions on improving patient uptake of HIV testing in OTPs including the incremental impact of the HIV/HCV intervention on HIV testing. Aim 2: To examine, using mixed-methods, the impact of the PC interventions on the initiation and sustained provision of HIV testing and timely linkage to care. Aim 3: To evaluate the health outcomes, health care utilization, and cost-effectiveness of the PC interventions compared incrementally to one another and to the control condition. Primary Hypothesis: 1. The two PC interventions will result in significantly higher proportions of patients tested for HIV than the information control condition during the "initial impact" period (7-12 months post-randomization or T3), controlling for the proportion of patients tested during the baseline period, T1 (Primary) and during the "sustained impact" period, 13-18 months post-randomization or T4 (Secondary). 2. The HIV/HCV PC intervention will result in significantly higher proportions of patients tested for HIV than the HIV PC intervention during the initial impact period (7-12 months post-randomization or T3), controlling for the proportion of patients tested during the baseline period, T1 (Secondary) and during the "sustained impact" period, 13-18 months post-randomization or T4 (Secondary).

Although global efforts have been made to end the HIV epidemic, there are still some gaps in HIV testing, antiretroviral therapy (ART) adherence, and viral suppression (VS) among people with HIV (PWH). These gaps are particularly prominent in the Deep South of the United States (US), where PWH face challenges in accessing healthcare services. In response, a team of experienced researchers has developed and tested the Community Health Workers And MHealth to ImProve Viral Suppression (CHAMPS) intervention. This intervention uses mobile health (mHealth) technology and a team of community health workers (CHW) to design an intervention to improve ART adherence and VS. The CHAMPS+ intervention adds a CHW delivered supportive risk reduction counseling during periods of non-suppression to prevent HIV transmission. The study will engage the participants by developing culturally relevant materials and retention strategies, evaluating the clinical effectiveness and sustainability of the intervention in Deep South settings, and assessing regionalized implementation factors. Ultimately, the study will test the effectiveness of CHAMPS+ on ART adherence and viral load suppression for PWH in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

Low medication adherence when initiating antiretroviral treatment (ART) is a key barrier to HIV virologic suppression, resulting in avoidable cases of drug resistance, death, and viral transmission. Routinized pill-taking can lead to successful long-term ART adherence, and short-term behavioral economics-based supports are a novel way to overcome the limited success of existing routinization interventions. This study proposes to test this combined approach for promoting long-term ART adherence using a Stage III Sequential, Multiple Assignment, Randomized Trial (SMART) design in one of the largest HIV clinics in Uganda to identify the most cost-effective adaptive intervention that if found effective is generalizable to other settings and other chronic diseases.

MyPEEPS Mobile Plus, a multi-level intervention for improving HIV prevention outcomes in YMSM, is a novel and evidence-driven approach using mobile technology to deliver HIV prevention information specifically developed for YMSM. Building on strong preliminary work, the proposed research is the next logical step in a body of work designed to assess whether refinement of this mobile intervention used in combination with virtual PrEP Peer Navigation will result in improvements in PrEP uptake and a reduction in HIV-related behavior. This is key to advancing HIV prevention among HIV-negative US persons at extremely high-risk for HIV seroconversion.

Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) remains a severe global infectious disease, with over 38 million people living with HIV and around 35 million cumulative deaths worldwide by 2023; approximately 1.24 million HIV-positive individuals and 100,000 new infections are reported annually in China. Widespread use of HAART has prolonged HIV patients' survival and reduced AIDS-related mortality, yet non-AIDS comorbidities dominated by chronic liver disorders, particularly metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD), have become a major challenge in long-term HIV management. Triggered by elevated blood lipids from lifestyle, antiretroviral agents and inherited metabolic factors, MAFLD initiates with hepatic steatosis and may progress to NASH, liver fibrosis, cirrhosis and even hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) without timely intervention. HIV-positive patients develop more severe MAFLD progression than HIV-negative counterparts; existing biopsy data shows 91% of ART-treated HIV patients have NAFLD, among whom 65% suffer from NASH complicated with liver fibrosis. Fatty liver prevalence keeps rising with younger onset age in China, which highlights the necessity of early screening. Liver biopsy, the historical diagnostic gold standard for liver injury grading, is restricted by invasiveness, bleeding risks and poor reproducibility. Transient elastography (TE), a novel non-invasive ultrasonic technique, quantifies hepatic steatosis via the ultrasound attenuation parameter (UAP) and liver fibrosis via liver stiffness measurement (LSM), and has been validated and guideline-endorsed for multiple chronic liver diseases globally. Published foreign data report 35%, 42% and 22% prevalence of NAFLD, NASH and fibrosis in PLWH, while domestic evidence on HIV-associated MAFLD is limited, especially liver-related discrepancies among varied ART regimens. With the implementation of China's new medical insurance policy, numerous patients are shifting from non-INI regimens to once-daily single-tablet INSTI STR regimens, whose hepatic and lipid impacts remain unclear. This study targets early detection of HIV patients with concomitant fatty liver to optimize management strategies and improve clinical outcomes. Our preliminary cohort at Peking Union Medical College Hospital included 188 virologically suppressed HIV patients on ART, 56.9% (107/188) of whom developed fatty liver (mild:27.1%, moderate:19.7%, severe:10.1%). Liver fibrosis (LSM≥7.3 kPa) was found in 12.8% (24/188) subjects, with 1.1% having advanced cirrhosis, and no significant inter-group difference in fatty liver incidence was noted between INSTI and NNRTI recipients. These findings lay a foundation for early diagnosis and follow-up intervention of metabolic liver disease among HIV-infected populations.

Despite the widespread use of effective antiretroviral therapy (ART), the HIV epidemic continues to impact racial and ethnic minority populations disproportionately. Although Black/African American persons account for 13% of the U.S. population, they account for 41% of new HIV diagnoses and experience the lowest rates of retention in HIV care and viral suppression (VS) compared to other racial/ethnic groups. Structural racism and discrimination (SRD) likely contribute to racial disparities in HIV outcomes. Although the outpatient setting is a vitally important aspect of care provision for people living with HIV (PLWH), there are limited data on the impact of intra-organizational SRD on HIV outcomes. Longitudinal engagement in HIV care is needed for sustained VS and decreased community transmission of HIV. The organizational social context (OSC) includes organizational culture (organizational norms and values that drive quality of care), organizational climate (perception of the culture and how it impacts personal well-being), and workers' attitudes. Using a randomized controlled trial (RCT), we will implement ARC (Accessibility, Responsiveness, Continuity) to improve organizational behavior and reduce racial disparities in HIV outcomes for PLWH. ARC is an evidence-based intervention that uses three strategies (ARC principles, ARC component tools, and ARC mental models) to create OSCs that support the implementation of interventions to improve patient outcomes. Clinics will be randomized to ARC (n = 2) or standard of care (SOC; n= 2). Those assigned to ARC will address SRD occurring at the organizational level affecting care, including referral and treatment patterns for PLWH. A pre-implementation period will be followed by ARC and ARC-associated implementation strategies for 36 months and then a 12-month post-implementation period where we will continue to measure HIV outcomes in both arms. We will compare HIV outcomes, namely VS and retention in care, and intermediate outcomes, such as linkage to mental health treatment and staff turn-over in clinics assigned to ARC and SOC. We will also evaluate whether individual (self-efficacy, perceived discrimination) and organizational factors (OSC and cohesion of OSC measures) mediate the relationship between ARC, intermediate, and HIV outcomes. In preparation to the RCT, we will evaluate baseline OSC measures across 12 HIV clinics in Philadelphia and determine aspects of the OSC associated with VS and retention in care in a multi-level model adjusting for neighborhood SRD, patient-level factors, and clustering of patients nested in clinics and neighborhoods. We will then test the effectiveness of ARC in improving a primary outcome of VS and secondary outcome of retention in care at the end of the implementation period. We will examine the acceptability, sustainability, and cost of implementing ARC in outpatient HIV care. This research will advance understanding of the impact of SRD on HIV treatment outcomes and health services research and the implementation of a disseminable evidence-based practice aimed at reducing SRD.

With a full-scale randomized control trial, the investigators will evaluate the efficacy and cost effectiveness of Mlambe, an economic and relationship-strengthening intervention that provides incentivized saving accounts, financial literacy training, and relationship skills education to break the cycle of poverty around drinking, strengthen couple support and communication, and reduce heavy drinking among HIV-affected married couples with a partner who drinks alcohol in Malawi.

The diverse microbial communities in different parts of the human body (microbiome) are important for health but understudied in pulmonary tuberculosis (TB), which is the single biggest infectious cause of death in the world. The investigators will study the site-of-disease microbiome (in the lung bronchoalveolar space) in TB cases to investigate how, before TB treatment, metabolic compounds made by microbes affect host biomarkers important for TB control. The investigators will ask this question again at the end-of-treatment and one year later. Specifically, the investigators will sample the lung at the active TB hotspot identified by imaging and compare this to a non-involved lung segment usually in the opposite lung. The investigators will compare the lung microbiome to other sites in the body (i.e. oral cavity, nasopharynx, supraglottis, and gut). A small amount of blood (\~15 ml) will be collected to assess peripheral immunological correlates of the host microbiome. Protected specimen brushings of the lung will be used to explore transcriptomic signatures and how these relate to the lung microbiome. The investigators will also apply these questions to the same number of controls (healthy patients and patients with an alternative diagnoses). This will lay the foundation for clinical trials to evaluate if specific bacteria have diagnostic (e.g., PCR) or therapeutic potential (e.g., antibiotics, prebiotics, probiotics, vaccines) where targeting the microbiome could improve clinical outcomes.

PrEP My Way is a novel PrEP delivery system consisting of clinic-based PrEP initiation, followed by peer-delivered kits for HIV self-testing, PrEP refills, vaginal swabs for gonorrhea and chlamydia self-sampling, pregnancy tests, and contraception refills, if desired. Based on Social Cognitive Theory, the overall hypothesis is that PrEP My Way will overcome critical stigma and structural barriers that currently limit PrEP use and thus empower young women to promote their sexual health. Preliminary testing of PrEP My Way in Kisumu, Kenya found it to be highly feasible and acceptable, but PrEP use as an oral medication was lower than expected. Now that newer PrEP formulations are becoming available, the team is adding choice of PrEP formulation (i.e., oral tenofovir/emtricitabine, injectable cabotegravir-long acting \[CAB-LA\], or dapivirine ring) as well as choice of adherence support from peers (e.g., SMS \[short message service\], routine check-ins and/or WhatsApp groups) to the intervention. The study team will then test the effectiveness of the augmented PrEP My Way intervention (with and without testing for gonorrhea and chlamydia due to cost concerns) on PrEP persistence in women with ongoing HIV prevention needs (i.e., self-reported desire for PrEP, self-reported HIV risk, condomless sex, and/or multiple sexual partners). The team will also track implementation, service, and client metrics per Proctor's framework and determine cost-effectiveness of the intervention

This study will use community-informed advertisements and messages through electronic methods to recruit and retain a large (N=3,200), diverse national sample of high-risk young men who have sex with men (YMSM) and non-binary individuals that are assigned male sex at birth, 16-29 years of age to determine the efficacy of the MyPEEPS Mobile intervention on reduced incident HIV infections in comparison to a standard of care condition and to examine the degree to which reduced incident HIV infections occurs in the context of potential multilevel moderators and conceptual mediators. This is key to advancing HIV prevention among HIV-negative US persons at extremely high-risk for HIV seroconversion.

This study integrates technology-based adherence measures with alerts for social and behavioral determinants of health (SBDOH) to improve HIV treatment outcomes. It involves 110 adult patients from a Los Angeles County HIV clinic, focusing on those at risk for poor adherence. Participants will be randomized into intervention or usual care groups, with endpoints including intervention acceptability, SBDOH interventions, adherence to ART, viral load, and high-risk sexual activity. The study aims to assess the effectiveness of the integrated intervention in improving adherence, virologic outcomes, and reducing high-risk behavior among PLWH.

The goal of this study is to understand the interaction between HIV and the host at the earliest stages when HIV medications are paused. Volunteers with HIV will interrupt antiretroviral therapy (ART) and then have intensive studies preformed two to three times per week. Most will resume therapy within three weeks, even if the virus does not rebound during this time.

A two-arm RCT will be conducted to test the efficacy of Women SHINE, a web-based trauma-informed peer navigation-social support intervention (Figure 2). A total of 360 women living with HIV/AIDS (WLHA) with a history of adulthood interpersonal violence who have been prescribed ART but are non-adherent (\< 90% ART adherent in the last 4 weeks) will be enrolled in the study. WLHA will be randomized (1:1) into one of the following conditions: 1) Women SHINE intervention arm (n=180) or 2) Control arm (n=180). The Women SHINE intervention arm will receive a four-month intervention including peer navigator (PN) one-on-one sessions, phone/text-based check-ins, 7 psychoeducation weekly support group sessions (120 mins.) co-facilitated by a licensed therapist and PN, and access to a static website with resources for HIV care, interpersonal violence, trauma, mental health, and substance use. The control arm will receive one group session (60 mins.) on self-care and well-being and access to the aforementioned website with resources. Women will complete a video-based survey and mailed hair sample self-collection at baseline, 4-, 8-, and 12-months post-randomization, to evaluate improvements in ART adherence (Aim 1), emotion regulation, and PTSD symptoms (Aim 2). Investigators will examine the mediating effect of individual (retention in HIV care, coping self-efficacy, social support, ancillary support services use) and socio-structural (stigma, medical mistrust) mechanisms of change on the efficacy of Women SHINE (Aim 3).

The study will use focus group methodology in the formative evaluation phase. Focus group methodology provides a rich source of data and understanding of phenomena by allowing the researcher to examine the interaction among participants

The study compares the Body Roundness Index (BRI) and the A Body Shape Index (ABSI) with with body fat and visceral fat in people living with HIV.

In this study, the investigators will test the mobile game, Viral Combat, for efficacy and acceptability among diverse participants, ages 15-34 years, receiving PrEP care in clinical settings in New England and Mississippi. Formative evaluation interviews will be conducted with stakeholders (healthcare workers, clinic administrators, and patients taking PrEP) to inform intervention delivery. Data from the formative interviews will also be used to make necessary adaptations to the game and assess acceptability for diverse populations and clinics. Viral Combat will then be further tested with 200 participants ages 15-34 years, receiving PrEP care at clinical sites in the South (n=100 Jackson, MS) and New England (n=100, Providence, RI; Boston, MA) in a multisite Hybrid Type 1 effectiveness-implementation randomized controlled trial (RCT). This trial will test the efficacy of the intervention compared to a control condition (a non-PrEP related game) on biological and behavioral measures. At the end of the trial, a summative evaluation of the implementation context using the i-PARIHS framework will occur. These interviews with study participants and clinic staff will inform future implementation and dissemination of Viral Combat.

Wedge-Shaped Clusterded Randomizad Trial to Evaluate Two Tools to identify People at Risk or already Infected with HIV and HCV

The investigative team will conduct a 2-arm randomized control trial to examine the preliminary effect of LinkPositively+ (LPP) an enhanced version of LinkPositively (LP) mobile app on improved HIV care outcomes including improved retention in HIV care, ART adherence, and viral suppression using hair sample analysis and passive electronic, medical record review, and secondarily, self-reported increased social support via activation of social support networks (i.e., assessed by utilization), self-efficacy, and utilization of ancillary support services at baseline, 3- and 6-month post enrollment. Black women living with HIV (WLHA) with a lifetime history of interpersonal violence, who have been linked to care but may have fallen out of care in the past year will be randomized 1:1 to either the LP arm or the LPP arm.

Dolutegravir (DTG) is one type of integrase inhibitor, lamivudine (3TC) is one type of reverse transcriptase inhibitor, both of which are HIV medicine prevents HIV from self-multiplying, reduces the viral load. The data of the existing randomized controlled clinical studies show that the simplified two-drug DTG-based regimen is similar to the three-drug regimen in terms of efficacy, but there are no relevant data and reports on the efficacy and safety of DTG+3TC in HIV-infected patients in China so far. This project aims to explore the efficacy and safety of the DTG + 3TC regimen for HIV-infected patients in real clinical environment, to guide clinical application, and to provide a theoretical basis for the selection of simplified schemes for the formulation of guidelines. This study was done to see if the combination of two anti-HIV medicines, dolutegravir (DTG, Tivicay) and lamivudine (3TC, Epivir) taken once a day, provide a safe, effective, and well-tolerated treatment for HIV.