(Rebecca Schnall)

PURPOSE: Oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is effective in preventing HIV transmission. However, oral PrEP uptake is low, particularly among sexual and gender minority youth who are vulnerable to HIV infection. Alternative methods of PrEP delivery, such as long-acting injectable (LAI) PrEP may overcome barriers and be preferred. However, attitudes and preferences of younger sexual and gender minorities towards LAI PrEP have not been well studied. The purpose of this study is to describe preferences for initiating LAI PrEP among sexual and gender minority youth...

Poor adherence to tuberculosis (TB) treatment leads to further disease transmission, worsened outcomes, and the development of drug resistance. Digital adherence technologies may facilitate a more patient-centered approach for improving TB treatment outcomes than current strategies. The objective of this study was to evaluate and explore improving usability of the TB Treatment Support Tools (TB-TST) mobile application. We used an iterative convergent mixed-method design consisting of two quantitative surveys and a qualitative think-aloud interview...

BACKGROUND: Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) affect over 55 million globally. Current clinical trials suffer from low recruitment rates, a challenge potentially addressable via natural language processing (NLP) technologies for researchers to effectively identify eligible clinical trial participants. OBJECTIVE: This study investigates the sociotechnical feasibility of NLP-driven tools for ADRD research prescreening and analyzes the tools' cognitive complexity's effect on usability to identify cognitive support strategies...

BACKGROUND: Nursing science is essential for generating a unique body of knowledge that is foundational to the academic discipline of nursing. PURPOSE: The goal of this analysis is to detail the education and licensing of faculty and leadership in research-intensive schools of nursing and to present the current data on the National Institute of Health (NIH) funding patterns in schools of nursing. METHODS: The faculty composition analysis focused on the 40 U...

OBJECTIVE: Mobile health (mHealth) technology is now widely used across health conditions and populations. The rigorous development of these tools has yielded improved health outcomes, yet the ideal approach for developing mHealth tools continues to evolve, indicating the need for rigorous usability evaluation methods. This study compares two usability evaluation methods - cognitive interviews and usability assessments employing a think-aloud approach - for adapting an evidence-based mHealth tool from English into Spanish...

PURPOSE: To determine if there were differences between the subjective and objective assessments of physical activity while controlling for sociodemographic, anthropometric, and clinical characteristics. SETTING/SAMPLE: A total of 810 participants across eight sites located in three countries. MEASURES: Subjective instruments were the two subscales of Self-efficacy for Exercise Behaviors Scale: Making Time for Exercise and Resisting Relapse and Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System, which measured physical function...

Cisgender men are diagnosed with HIV at a rate four times greater than cisgender women, with 71% of infections attributed to male-male sexual contact. Despite expanding accessibility, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV prevention is initiated by only 30% of people with PrEP indications. Five focus groups with 42 young men who have sex with men from New York and Alabama were conducted to identify key factors to PrEP initiation and persistence. Thirty focus group participants completed a survey on demographics, PrEP choices and health care attitudes...

Black/African American and Hispanic Americans experience significant HIV-related disparities. Substance use might be a contributing factor to these disparities, but there is limited research on this topic. This study investigated various substance use risks by HIV status and race/ethnicity (Black, Hispanic, White) among U.S. adults. We used data from the 2005-2019 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (N = 541,921). In each racial/ethnic group, the prevalence rates of past-year and past-month tobacco, alcohol, cannabis, and cocaine use, and past-year alcohol and illicit drug use disorders were estimated by HIV status...

BACKGROUND: While there is no cure for HIV, adherence to antiretroviral therapy can extend the lifespan and improve the quality of life of people with HIV. Despite the global reduction of HIV infection rates in recent years, New York City and La Romana, Dominican Republic, continue to report high infection rates among Latino populations. Many people with HIV remain virally unsuppressed in these geographic hotspots, suggesting a need for additional interventions to overcome medication adherence barriers...

As the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the world, immunocompromised individuals such as people with HIV (PWH) may have faced a disproportionate impact on their health and HIV outcomes, both from COVID-19 and from the strategies enacted to contain it. Based on the SPIRIT guidelines, we describe the protocol for an international multisite observational study being conducted by The International Nursing Network for HIV Research, with the Coordinating Center based at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School of Nursing...

INTRODUCTION: Little is known on the potential racial differences in latent subgroup membership based on mental health and cognitive symptomatology among older adults. METHODS: This is a secondary data analysis of Wave 2 data from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project ( N = 1819). Symptoms were depression, anxiety, loneliness, happiness, and cognition. Multiple-group latent class analysis was conducted to identify latent subgroups based on mental health and cognitive symptoms and to compare these differences between race...

BACKGROUND: An estimated 40% of people living with HIV smoke cigarettes. Although smoking rates in the United States have been declining in recent years, people living with HIV continue to smoke cigarettes at twice the rate of the general population. Mobile health (mHealth) technology is an effective tool for people living with a chronic illness, such as HIV, as currently 84% of households in the United States report that they have a smartphone. Although many studies have used mHealth interventions for smoking cessation, few studies have recruited people living with HIV who smoke...

Supervised physical activity can increase functional capacity in persons with HIV (PWH); however, aerobic interventions have shown little improvement in overall physical activity in PWH. In response, we sought to assess the effect of wearing a fitness tracker (FitBit) paired with walk step reminders delivered through an mHealth application to improve physical activity and decreasing body mass index among PWH in New York City. There was no significant difference in the frequency of walk steps between participants in the control group and intervention group from baseline to 6-month follow-up...

BACKGROUND: People living with HIV have long life expectancy and are experiencing more comorbid conditions, being at an increased risk for developing cardiovascular disease (CVD) and diabetes, further exacerbated due to the HIV or inflammatory process. One effective intervention shown to decrease mortality and improve health outcomes related to CVD and diabetes in people living with HIV is increased regular physical activity. However, people living with HIV often fall short of the daily recommended physical activity levels...

IMPORTANCE: Due to insufficient smoking cessation apps for persons living with HIV, our study focused on designing and testing the Sense2Quit app, a patient-facing mHealth tool which integrated visualizations of patient information, specifically smoking use. OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this paper is to detail rigorous human-centered design methods to develop and refine visualizations of smoking data and the contents and user interface of the Sense2Quit app. The Sense2Quit app was created to support tobacco cessation and relapse prevention for people living with HIV...

OBJECTIVE: To pilot test an infographic-based health communication intervention that our team rigorously designed and explore whether its implementation leads to better health outcomes among Latino persons with HIV (PWH). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Latino PWH (N = 30) living in New York City received the intervention during health education sessions at 3 study visits that occurred approximately 3 months apart. At each visit, participants completed baseline or follow-up assessments and laboratory data were extracted from patient charts...

Older adults oftentimes experience cognitive aging which leads to varying degrees of cognitive impairment. Previous studies have found that racial and ethnic disparities exist in the prevalence and severity of cognitive impairment among older adults. Yet, little is known on the relationship among specific cognitive domains and how this relationship differs between African American and White older adults. This is a secondary data analysis of Wave II (2010-2011) data from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP)...

BACKGROUND: Persons with HIV (PWH) can now achieve a near-normal life expectancy due to antiretroviral therapy (ART). Despite widespread availability of ART in the United States (US), many of the country's approximate 1.1 million PWH are not achieving viral suppression due to poor ART adherence. Viral suppression rates are particularly low in Alabama (AL, 62%) and New York City (NYC, 67%). There is mixed evidence on the efficacy of community health workers (CHW) and mHealth interventions for improving ART adherence and viral suppression in PWH thus, we sought to combine these interventions and test the efficacy for improving health outcomes in PWH...

PURPOSEOF REVIEW: Young people face the highest number of new HIV infections globally. With today's increasing access to smartphones, serious games have been viewed as an effective means of improving knowledge and behavioral outcomes. This systematic review describes current HIV prevention serious games and their relationship with HIV-related knowledge and behavioral outcomes. RECENT FINDINGS: A search of HIV prevention serious games was conducted using PubMed, CINAL, IEEE, Web of Science, and Google Scholar...

HIV-related disparities also exist in developing countries, such as the Dominican Republic, where minority groups and/or those with low socioeconomic status experience higher disease burdens and worse health outcomes than those with higher socioeconomic status. We used a community-based approach to ensure the WiseApp intervention is culturally relevant and addresses the needs of our target population. Expert panelists made recommendations on how to simplify the language and features of the WiseApp to accommodate Spanish-speaking users who may have lower levels of education, or color or vision deficiencies...