Mentored Scientist Award

In the United States, Latinos are disproportionately impacted by HIV and have high rates of substance use and depression. Untreated substance use and depression often co-occur and are driving poor engagement in HIV care and impeding efforts to eliminate health disparities and the reduction of new infections. This Mentored Scientist Award will support the conduct of original research in the area of substance use and depression fromthe CFAR Network of Integrated Clinical Systems (CNICS) cohort of HIV+ Latinos. The aims are to analyze data from the CNICS cohort of HIV+ Latinos receiving HIV care at seven sites in the U.S. The results will elucidate the substance use patterns and depressive symptomatology of Latinos with HIV across the U.S. Additionally, advanced quantitative methods for longitudinal data will be used to strengthen the inferences that can be drawn from the cohort data, estimating the impact of substance use, depression, and their interaction on HIV clinical outcomes over time. Characterizing the substance use patterns among a group of HIV+ Latinos is a first step toward developing more targeted interventions for patients with substance abuse and depression.