With a $3.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, Rutgers researchers will conduct one of largest and most comprehensive studies of heart and metabolic conditions among older adults living with HIV.
Advances in treatment have helped people with HIV live longer than ever before, but as this population ages, a new challenge is emerging: managing chronic conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and kidney disease, often with limited evidence about which treatments work best.
“We have made tremendous progress in helping people with HIV live longer, but the evidence guiding treatment of age-related conditions has not kept pace,” said Chintan Dave , a core member of the Center for Pharmacoepidemiology and Treatment Science at the Rutgers Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research. “Our study will help determine who is at greatest risk, where treatment gaps exist and which medications offer the greatest benefits with the fewest harms.”
Dave, the lead principal investigator of the National Institute on Aging–backed project, and fellow principal investigator Stephanie Shiau , an associate professor at the Rutgers School of Public Health , will investigate the risk of heart disease, diabetes and other chronic conditions, identify gaps in recommended treatments and evaluate the safety and effectiveness of commonly prescribed medications.
Using national Medicare records encompassing more than 45,000 older adults with HIV, alongside large Medicaid and private health insurance databases, the researchers will examine the health of adults ages 50 and older across diverse patient populations and health care settings.
“As people with HIV live longer, we need to better understand the health challenges they face as they age,” Shiau said. “By studying a large and diverse population of adults with HIV, we hope to identify disparities in care and generate evidence that can help improve their long-term health.”
“Clinical trials often do not adequately represent older adults with HIV, particularly those managing multiple chronic conditions,” said Dave, who also is the director of the Center for Health Outcomes, Policy and Economics and an associate professor at the Rutgers Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy . “By studying how medications are used and how patients fare in everyday clinical practice, we hope to generate evidence that better reflects the patients and treatment decisions clinicians face in the real world.”
The researchers said they hope the findings will help patients, caregivers and clinicians better understand the risks of chronic conditions and make more informed, evidence-based treatment decisions.
The grant was supported by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health.