Less than half of people with HIV in the U.S. stay consistently connected to outpatient HIV care, a gap that limits access to lifesaving medications and increases the risk of HIV transmission. Hospitalizations are especially common among people who are already disconnected from care. Among the nearly 200,000 hospitalizations among persons with HIV in the US every year, more than half are persons previously diagnosed but not engaged in outpatient HIV care, and more than half of persons who are newly diagnosed with HIV during a hospitalization link to outpatient HIV care within 3 months of being discharged.
Sarah Rutstein, MD, PhD, and Thibaut Davy‑Mendez, PhD, MSPH, assistant professors of medicine have received an R01 from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Their multi-year award, entitled Leveraging Inpatient records to characterize the HIV Care continuum in North Carolina (LINC-NC), focuses on a moment that often gets overlooked in HIV care–what happens after someone with HIV leaves the hospital.
Read more on the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases website.