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The term of realization
15.05.2024 – 28.02.2029
Principal Investigator
Oleksandr Neduzhko
Funded by
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
The aim of the project
This proposed study addresses a highly relevant public health question: how people living with HIV and affected by disaster access and remain engaged in HIV care. This study will take place in Ukraine, which continues to experience one of the highest HIV rates in Europe and has been devastated by Russia’s 2022 invasion and ongoing war. The information gained through this study has the potential to inform the development of policies and practices to help people living with HIV maintain access to care in contexts of instability.
Goals and objectives
- To measure the effects of disaster-related stressors (personal, interpersonal, and environmental) and mediating effects of social determinants of health (SDOH) and adaptation on primary clinical outcomes of HIV care engagement, ART adherence, and viral suppression and secondary outcomes of drug treatment engagement and risky substance use in a longitudinal cohort followed up to 3 years.
- To qualitatively characterize at baseline and longitudinally the effects of disaster-related stressors on SDOH, adaptation trajectories and health care engagement of HIV+ PWUD.
- To explore how service providers who work with PWUD and PLWH modify policies and practices in the context of supply chain disruptions, workforce depletion, and population displacement to promote continued care engagement.