
Transgender Education for Affirmative and Competent HIV and Healthcare
StigmaSocial2 moreEducational workshops are an efficacious strategy to increase healthcare providers' ability to provide gender-affirming care for transgender (trans) people. This strategy may also reduce healthcare providers' stigma towards trans people and people living with HIV. There is less evidence, however, of educational workshops that address HIV prevention and care among trans women. This protocol details the development and pilot testing of the TEACHH: Transgender Education for Affirmative and Competent HIV and Healthcare intervention that aims to increase gender-affirming HIV care competency among healthcare providers.This community-based research (CBR) project involves intervention development and implementation of a non-randomized multi-site pilot study with pre- post-test design. First, the investigators will conduct a qualitative formative phase involving focus groups with 30 trans women and individual interviews with 12 providers to understand HIV care access barriers for trans women and elicit feedback on a proposed workshop. Second, the investigators will pilot test the intervention with 90-150 providers (n=30-50x3 in-person settings). Primary outcomes include feasibility (e.g., completion rate), workshop satisfaction, and willingness to attend another workshop. Secondary pre- and post-intervention outcomes, assessed directly preceding and following the workshop, include perceived competency, intention to provide gender-affirming HIV care, and attitudes/biases towards trans women with HIV. Primary outcomes will be summarized as frequencies and proportions (categorical variables) and means and standard deviations (continuous variables). The investigators will conduct paired-sample t tests to assess pre- and post-intervention differences for secondary outcomes.

Improve Functional Health Status in Minority Women With HIV
HIV/AIDSHIV is no longer a death sentence, and with adherence to Rapid High Activity Antiretroviral (HAART) protocol women with HIV can achieve a normal life expectancy. In New Jersey there are 11,724 (32.9%) women living with HIV with Essex county in the lead, and they come they come from lowest social strata and educational level and are often single mothers. The purpose of this study is test three study interventions: a cognitive health promotion intervention, a guided imagery intervention and combination of both interventions. The Significance of the study is to improve the functional health and protocol adherence, to better enable women with HIV to achieve a normal life expectancy. The Methodology is an intervention study that uses a classic four group pretest post-test experimental design with random assignment, and the subjects for the study will be 80 women living with HIV. The interventions will be delivered within a three-week time frame followed by post testing at the end of the third week in Newark,New Jersey. The results of this study will be used as preliminary data to support a grant proposal to be submitted to the National Institutes of Health. The Results of this study are important as they will support improved health function and adherence to treatment protocols for marginalized poor women with HIV to achieve outcomes on par with men.

Expanding HIV Testing Among Uganda Adults Who Utilize Traditional Healers
HIV/AIDSHealth BehaviorsHIV antiretroviral therapy has the potential to dramatically decrease HIV transmission worldwide1; yet, a barrier to ending the AIDS epidemic in low-resource settings is the fact that healthcare is largely provided by traditional or spiritual healers rather than biomedical providers, and there are no strategies in place to identify HIV-infected patients among Traditional Healer patients and link them to HIV care. In order to reach the UNAIDS 90-90-90 benchmarks HIV services must reach marginalized populations in endemic regions, such as in southwestern Uganda. Uganda is one of seven sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries accounting for 90% of all new HIV infections in this region6. HIV prevalence is 7.3%, with ~1.5 million people living with HIV/AIDS and 99,000 new infections in 2014. However, only 50% of sexually active Ugandans have ever tested for HIV8. In the project location of southwestern Uganda, like much of SSA, the majority of Ugandans utilize Traditional Healers (TH), but little is known about Traditional Healer practices or rates of HIV testing (or HIV infection) among their clients. Specific aims of this study are to: 1) identify key socio-structural factors that frame HIV testing behaviors among Ugandan adults who utilize Traditional Healers; 2) investigate acceptability of providing point-of-care HIV testing at Traditional Healer practice locations; and 3) develop and pilot a prospective HIV testing intervention among Traditional Healer patients to promote earlier diagnosis. Results will be used to implement subsequent, large-scale cluster-randomized HIV testing intervention at Traditional Healer practice locations. Findings from the proposed study include formative data on populations that utilize Traditional Healers in an HIV-endemic region of Uganda, and pilot testing of an HIV testing intervention at healer practice locations; these results could be applied towards expanding HIV testing in other low-resource, endemic settings.

The Happy Older Latinos Are Active (HOLA) Health Promotion Study in HIV-Infected Latino Men
Human Immunodeficiency VirusCardiometabolic RiskThe purpose of this study is to examine the feasibility of an intervention to prevent chronic diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity in midlife and older Latino adults living with HIV. The investigators expect that the participant will be in this study for seven months. Participants will be interviewed and asked to take part in walking groups.

Interventions to Improve the HIV PrEP Cascade Among Methamphetamine Users
HIV/AIDSAdherence2 moreDespite increasing knowledge about and use of PrEP nationally, HIV continues to have disproportionate impact among cisgender men and transgender persons who have sex with men and transgender persons (MSM/TG), with methamphetamine (meth)-users being at particularly high risk. Building on their preliminary work, the investigators will pilot text messaging and peer navigation interventions to support PrEP use among meth-using MSM/TG with potential to be cost-effective, scalable, and easily adaptable.

Situational Analysis of HIV-related Disability in the Context of Ivory Coast
HIV InfectionsThe goal of this study is to document the impairment, functional and activity limitation and disability associated with HIV infection in an African urban context. It will combine quantitative and a qualitative methods. The quantitative evaluation will include 300 adults living with HIV of age ≥40 years receiving antiretroviral therapy and followed at the infectious disease department (SMIT), CHU de Treichville, Abidjan, and 200 adults without HIV infection of similar age and sex (control group). This cross-sectional evaluation will combine clinical, functional and cognitive evaluations and questionnaire on disability, depression and physical activity. The qualitative research will be based on semi-directed interviews and will examine disability perception and biographic reconstruction.

Linking Persons With HIV, Discharged From Jail, With Community Care
Human Immunodeficiency VirusThis is a prospective cohort study of outcomes of individuals who entered jail during a period during which one of three serial HIV testing strategies is implemented. This study involves two sub-studies. One sub-study will examine referrals to HIV prevention programs for persons testing negative for HIV while in jail. The second sub-study will monitor antiviral use among those testing positive for HIV.

Dolutegravir-based Dual Therapies in HIV-infected Patients With Virological Suppression
HIV InfectionThe objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety, and evolution of causes leading to change, of dual therapies based in Dolutegravir in patients requiring a change of virologically effective antiretroviral therapy.

Assessment of the HIV CNS Reservoir, Neurological and Neuro-cognitive Effects, and Source of Rebound...
Acute HIV InfectionHIV CNS InvolvementThis study aims to describe in depth the CNS, CNS HIV reservoir and CNS viral rebound in consenting SEARCH 019 subjects prior to, during and after the SEARCH 019 study intervention (VHM + ART or ART only), at 1) baseline, 2) end of study intervention and start of ART interruption, 3) viral rebound (if occurring) or mid-way during observed ART interruption, and 4) at the end of ART interruption. Study SEARCH 026 itself does not employ any therapeutic interventions. However, consenting subjects will participate in lumbar puncture, non-contrast MRI + MRS, and neuropsychological testing at at least three and at most four time points. Any of the 15 subjects to be enrolled in SEARCH 019 may consent to study SEARCH 026 participation and hence a maximum of 15 subjects may enroll. As this is a sub-study, data will be shared from study SEARCH 019 and no interventions (venipunctures) will be repeated unnecessarily.

Impact of Pre-ART Blood CD4+ T Cell Level on the Rectal Reservoir in Long-term HIV-1 Treated Men...
Human Immunodeficiency VirusAlthough combined antiretroviral therapy (cART) has dramatically improved quality of life and lifespan of HIV infected individuals, it still fails to eliminate viral reservoirs. The Gut Associated Lymphoid Tissue (GALT) is the largest reservoir of HIV-1, as it harbors most of HIV target cells as activated memory Cluster of differentiation (CD)4+/CCR5+ T cells. Intestinal T and B cells express α4β7 integrin, a gut mucosal homing receptor which binds to gp120 HIV-1 envelope facilitating the infection of intestinal T cells and the early establishment of the gut HIV reservoir. Intensive viral replication in the GALT leads to an early impairment of mucosal immunity, due to the severe CD4+ T cells depletion, that could be also explained by a lack of recruitment in the gut. Among T cells, interleukin-(IL-)17 secreting CD4+ T cells (Th17) are particularly depleted during HIV infection. This depletion could be associated with HIV progression since these cells play a crucial role in the maintenance of mucosal immunity. A dysbalance of the Th17/Treg ratio may reflect the loss of the intestinal epithelial barrier integrity. These damages are responsible for an increase in microbial translocation, which is associated with immune activation and progression to AIDS. Several recent studies have shown that cART initiation during acute or early HIV-1 infection reduces HIV DNA reservoir size and improves immune reconstitution in blood. Post-treatment controllers, who started long-term cART early after HIV infection, have very low levels of HIV DNA in peripheral blood mononuclear cells, similarly to elite controllers. Unlike most HIV-infected individuals, they maintain an undetectable plasmatic viral load after several years of cART interruption, suggesting that a weak reservoir is a prerequisite to achieve a functional cure. By extrapolation, it could be hypothesized that the gut viral reservoir is also decreased and that mucosal immunity is restored when cART is initiated during primary phase of infection. The gut viral reservoir begins to form within the first days after HIV exposure, and grows during acute HIV infection. Similarly, intestinal T cells are depleted very early after infection, due to high viral replication, host immune response and bystander effects. Most studies also concluded that long-term and optimal treatment can't fully restore mucosal immunity. These observations led us to study the impact of time of cART start on the size of viral reservoir and on immune reconstitution in the gut. For this, we analyzed the virological and immunological characteristics of the rectal HIV reservoir of long-term treated patients regarding their blood CD4+ T cells count at the time of cART initiation.