Abstract

The New York City HIV Care Coordination Program (CCP) combines multiple evidence-based strategies to support persons living with HIV (PLWH) at risk for, or with a recent history of, poor HIV outcomes. We assessed the comparative effectiveness of the CCP by merging programmatic data on CCP clients with population-based surveillance data on all New York City PLWH. A non-CCP comparison group of similar PLWH who met CCP eligibility criteria was identified using surveillance data. The CCP and non-CCP groups were matched on propensity for CCP enrollment within four baseline treatment status groups (newly diagnosed or previously diagnosed and either consistently unsuppressed, inconsistently suppressed or consistently suppressed). We compared CCP to non-CCP proportions with viral load suppression at 12-month follow-up. Among the 13,624 persons included, 15∙3% were newly diagnosed; among the 84∙7% previously diagnosed, 14∙2% were consistently suppressed, 28∙9% were inconsistently suppressed, and 41∙6% were consistently unsuppressed in the year prior to baseline. At 12-month follow-up, 59∙9% of CCP and 53∙9% of non-CCP participants had viral load suppression (Relative Risk = 1.11, 95%CI:1.08–1.14). Among those newly diagnosed and those consistently unsuppressed at baseline, the relative risk of viral load suppression in the CCP versus non-CCP participants was 1.15 (95%CI:1.09–1.23) and 1.32 (95%CI:1.23–1.42), respectively. CCP exposure shows benefits over no CCP exposure for persons newly diagnosed or consistently unsuppressed, but not for persons suppressed in the year prior to baseline. We recommend more targeted case finding for CCP enrollment and increased attention to viral load suppression maintenance.

Highlights

  • The goal of HIV treatment is to achieve viral load suppression (VLS), which occurs when the amount of viral load (VL) circulating in the body is very low.[1]

  • The HIV care continuum represents the series of sequential steps of HIV medical care engagement that persons living with HIV (PLWH) go through in order to achieve VLS and is typically depicted as the number or proportion of persons who are estimated to be (1) HIV-infected, (2) HIV-diagnosed, (3) receiving HIV-medical care, (4) prescribed antiretroviral treatment (ART) and (5) virally suppressed.[1,2,3]

  • Efforts aimed at controlling the domestic HIV epidemic will require integrated medical and social support approaches in order to extend the benefits of HIV treatment to the large numbers of PLWH who to date have not been able to achieve and sustain VLS [5]

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Summary

Introduction

The goal of HIV treatment is to achieve viral load suppression (VLS), which occurs when the amount of viral load (VL) circulating in the body is very low (no higher than 200 HIV RNA copies/μL).[1] The HIV care continuum represents the series of sequential steps of HIV medical care engagement that persons living with HIV (PLWH) go through in order to achieve VLS and is typically depicted as the number or proportion of persons who are estimated to be (1) HIV-infected, (2) HIV-diagnosed, (3) receiving HIV-medical care, (4) prescribed antiretroviral treatment (ART) and (5) virally suppressed.[1,2,3]. Efforts aimed at controlling the domestic HIV epidemic will require integrated medical and social support approaches in order to extend the benefits of HIV treatment to the large numbers of PLWH who to date have not been able to achieve and sustain VLS [5]. A first step toward strengthening the HIV care continuum is to address immediate barriers to adherence and to improve short-term outcomes among PLWH who are under-engaged with HIV medical care and treatment. Two cohort studies have evaluated VLS outcomes and found no program benefit for VLS [15, 18]

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