Dr. Adedotun Ogunbajo (UHU) and his team have been awarded a 2023 NIH CFAR Ending the Epidemic Supplement Award to develop and pilot test a multidimensional intervention to improve HIV care outcomes among recently incarcerated people living with HIV in the Washington DC metropolitan area.
There is an overrepresentation of racial minority people in the United States (U.S.) criminal justice system. Furthermore, there is an intersection between HIV and incarceration, with about 1 in 7 people living with HIV (PLHIV) having engaged with the criminal justice system. Past public health interventions to improve HIV outcomes among people with a history of incarceration have primarily aimed to decrease sexual risk taking, increasing HIV testing and reducing substance use behavior. A multidimensional, patient-centered intervention that addresses the economic (employment, housing, food, clothing, & transportation) psychosocial (mental health & substance use), medical (access to quality and affordable health services and medication) and holistic (exercise, mindfulness & meditation) barriers to engagement in HIV care might improve health outcomes among this marginalized group. However, to date, no known study has investigated the impact of a multipronged approach to improving HIV care outcomes among recently incarcerated PLHIV.
They will conduct one-on-one, semi-structured interviews with recently incarcerated PLHIV (n=20) and service providers (community health workers, healthcare providers, social workers, and case managers) that serve this community (n=20) to identify the barriers to engagement in HIV care and gain insights on the content, format, & potential implementation challenges for an intervention to address economic, psychosocial, medical, and holistic needs of recently incarcerated PLHIV (Specific Aim #1). Next, they will implement an open pilot intervention (n=20) addressing the multilevel barriers to continued engagement in HIV care on recently incarcerated PLHIV and assess feasibility and acceptability of implementing this intervention among the target population (Specific Aim #2). Successful completion of the proposed research aims will position me to submit a competitive R34 application, a randomized controlled trial to investigate the effects of a multilevel intervention addressing multilevel needs among PLHIV post incarceration to standard care on HIV care engagement and viral load suppression.