Pilot Award

Retention in care is important for the health and well-being of HIV-infected persons. However, we do not know which measures of retention best predict key clinical outcomes such as mortality. In addition, existing studies of retention have only established an association between retention and mortality, rather than a causal effect.

Objectives: 1) accurately measure alcohol and drug use, especially amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) and HIV prevalence, among female sex workers (FSW) and male clients of FSW in Preah Sihanouk Province, Cambodia, and; 2) assess the synergy between alcohol and/or drug exposures and HIV risks according to the type of sex work venues.

Retention in care is important for the health and well-being of HIV-infected persons. However, we do not know which measures of retention best predict key clinical outcomes such as mortality. In addition, existing studies of retention have only established an association between retention and mortality, rather than a causal effect.

Objectives: 1) accurately measure alcohol and drug use, especially amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) and HIV prevalence, among female sex workers (FSW) and male clients of FSW in Preah Sihanouk Province, Cambodia, and; 2) assess the synergy between alcohol and/or drug exposures and HIV risks according to the type of sex work venues.

Malaria has dominated the illness landscape in sub-Saharan Africa for many decades and fevers in children have typically been treated as malaria without laboratory confirmation. Recently, several parts of Africa have dramatically reduced malaria by employing multiple prevention tools and improving case management. In Zanzibar, 98 out of every 100 hundred febrile patients recently seen in clinics have tested negative for malaria.

Malaria has dominated the illness landscape in sub-Saharan Africa for many decades and fevers in children have typically been treated as malaria without laboratory confirmation. Recently, several parts of Africa have dramatically reduced malaria by employing multiple prevention tools and improving case management. In Zanzibar, 98 out of every 100 hundred febrile patients recently seen in clinics have tested negative for malaria.

Methods to improve accuracy in self-reported sexual behavior are critical in reducing errors that impede accurate assessment of intervention outcomes and prevalence estimates of HIV-related risk. Research findings to date provide abundant empirical evidence that reliability and validity of self-reported sexual behavior is a major problem. Scientific models of the survey question-answer process specify question comprehension as a necessary precursor to enhancing data quality.

Methods to improve accuracy in self-reported sexual behavior are critical in reducing errors that impede accurate assessment of intervention outcomes and prevalence estimates of HIV-related risk. Research findings to date provide abundant empirical evidence that reliability and validity of self-reported sexual behavior is a major problem. Scientific models of the survey question-answer process specify question comprehension as a necessary precursor to enhancing data quality.

The Women's Interagency HIV Study (WIHS) is a longitudinal cohort study of women with HIV, and a risk-set match control group; the women enrolled are primarily African American and Latina, with a small number of Asian and Caucasian non-Hispanic women. In Fall of 2011, the WIHS National Community Advisory Board (NCAB) requested to receive their individual estimates of ancestry admixture that are being used as covariates in genomic studies.

The increasing call for community-level evaluation of "combination HIV prevention" (packages of our best evidence-based HIV prevention interventions) has brought to the forefront the need to develop novel methods of both evaluating these combinations of interventions in aggregate and estimating the relative contributions of individual components of the combined intervention. However, such comprehensive methods do not exist.