Prevalence of Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Opportunistic Infections Among Transgender Patients in the Clinical Setting: An All-Payer Electronic Health Record Database Study.

Joshua D Niforatos,Jacqueline Cavendish,Jonathon W Wanta,Emily Durbak,Justin A Yax

doi:10.1089/trgh.2019.0030

Abstract

We performed a cross-sectional analysis of the prevalence of HIV and opportunistic infections among transgender patients in clinical care. Of 10,160 transgender patients identified, 3.9% had a diagnosis of HIV, compared to 0.32% in the non-transgender cohort (p<0.0001). Transgender patients experience the burden of all opportunistic infection compared to non-transgender patients in this analysis, although prevalence of pneumocystis pneumonia was not significant. This cohort-based, all-payer electronic health record study of HIV patients connected to care revealed that transgender patients have a higher prevalence of HIV infection and opportunistic infections compared to the non-transgender cohort.

Highlights

In the United States, *1.4 million adults identify as transgender.[1,2,3] Methods to estimate the prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus in this population rely on questions from survey studies.[4,5,6,7] The reported population prevalence of HIV in these studies ranges from 1.4% among all transgender persons to 3.4% to 21% among transgender women.[4,8] these data may underestimate the actual prevalence of HIV in this population
This cohort-based, all-payer electronic health record study of HIV patients connected to care revealed that transgender patients have a higher prevalence of HIV infection and opportunistic infections compared to the non-transgender cohort
We identified 3.4% of transgender patients living with HIV, while previous survey studies have observed prevalence ranging from 1.4% to 14% in survey studies and meta-analyses of case series, respectively.[4,5,23]

Summary

Introduction

In the United States, *1.4 million adults identify as transgender.[1,2,3] Methods to estimate the prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus in this population rely on questions from survey studies.[4,5,6,7] The reported population prevalence of HIV in these studies ranges from 1.4% among all transgender persons to 3.4% to 21% among transgender women.[4,8] these data may underestimate the actual prevalence of HIV in this population. Estimating the prevalence of HIV among transgender persons may benefit from alternative methods as opposed to survey study questionnaires and meta-analyses with significant heterogeneity

Methods

Results

Conclusion