News
VACS Publicity
Recent News
Scientific Presentations
VACS Publicity
Yale Shares in $11 Million Grant to Study Aging Patients Battling HIV and Substance Abuse - Aging HIV patients who also battle substance abuse and depression will benefit from a five-year $11,250,000 grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism to The Consortium to improve OutcoMes in hiv/AIDS, Alcohol, Aging, and multi-Substance use (COMpAAAS), a Yale-led research consortium focused on optimizing healthcare for these patients. The consortium includes the Veterans Administration Healthcare System, Yale’s Schools of Medicine and Public Health, and New York University. It builds on a decade of observational and pilot intervention work conducted within the Veterans Aging Cohort Study (VACS) of over 120,000 United States veterans, which includes 40,000 individuals living with HIV. COMpAAAS will expand alcohol intervention studies using a stepped care approach. Its aim is to understand the implications of findings and to determine what additional evidence is needed.
Studies Shed Further Light on Cardiovascular Disease among People with HIV - HIV positive people are at higher risk for cardiovascular disease overall, compared with HIV negative individuals, according to findings from Kaiser Permanente presented this month at the 18th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2011) and according to a report in the April 25 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine , one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Archives of Internal Medicine News Release
Other studies found that HIV positive people on ART with well-preserved immune function were not at greater risk, however, and that abacavir (Ziagen) was not linked to heart attacks.
Refining the Picture of Chronic HIV Infection: The Impact of Pulmonary Disease - While the importance of pulmonary infections is well known to HIV providers, the burden of non-infectious pulmonary disease is less clear. Studies suggest that HIV-infected patients have higher rates of emphysema, pulmonary hypertension and lung cancer, even after controlling for tobacco exposure. A study in the February 2011 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine adds to this evidence, providing a broad view of the changing spectrum of pulmonary disease in a large HIV-infected cohort.
High Blood Pressure Increases Heart Attack Risk in HIV - Work led by Kaku Armah
HIV is Associated with Clinically Confirmed Myocardial Infarction after Adjustment for Smoking and Other Risk Factors
Age-Related Declines in Physical Function No More Common in HIVPeople living with HIV are no more likely than their HIV-negative peers to experience age-related declines in physical functioning-a problem tied to poorer health in older people-according to a study published in the January issue of AIDS Patient Care and STDs. Pub Med Abstract
Yale School of Medicine Professor Amy Justice, M.D., PhD Speaks at White House on HIV and Aging.
VACS article, “Towards a combined prognostic index for survival in HIV infection: the role of non-HIV biomarkers” was featured in:
Public Health Strategic Healthcare Group Newsletter, "Public Health Matters". This issue is devoted entirely to the topic of HIV/AIDS in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). Currently, there are over 23,000 Veterans in care for their HIV disease in the VHA, which makes PHSHG the largest provider of health services for HIV infected persons in the United States.
WXXI EARNS TWO TELLY AWARDS FOR ITS NATIONAL TV SERIES, SECOND OPINION
Hosted by Dr. Peter Salgo, Second Opinion presents actual medical cases to a panel of experts to debate the pros and cons of diagnostic testing, interpret test results, and prescribe the best course of action. Its "HIV in Middle Age" episode and "H1N1 Special Edition" episode garnered the awards.
Heavy Alcohol Use Increases Risk of Cardiovascular Disease in Men with HIV
February 2010 Freiberg M, et al.
HIV Contributes to Lung Cancer Risk, but Not Nearly as Much as Smoking
February 2010 Sigel K, et al.
HIV Infection and HIV/HCV Coinfection Increased Risk of Strokes in Veterans Study
February 2010 Sico J, et al.
HIV-Infection and Fragility Fracture Risk among Male Veterans
February 2010 Womack J, et al.
HIV/HCV Coinfected Veterans Have Elevated Risk of Chronic Kidney Disease
February 2010 Fischer M, et al.
UF study: Prescribed erectile dysfunction drugs don’t lead to risky sexual behavior
January 2010 Cook R, et al.
Recent News
May 2012
- Dr. Robert Dubrow, chair of the VACS Cancer Core, has been selected as the Yale School of Public Health "Teacher of the Year" for 2012. He teaches classes in Epidemiology and is consistently praised for his supportive teaching, passion, and expertise. Dr. Robert Dubrow will speak at the Class of 2012 Commencement ceremony on May 21st, and his name will be inscribed on the Distinguished Teaching Award Plaque at the School of Public Health.
- Mary Logeais tied for first place at New England SGIM for her oral abstract presentation based on obesity and weight trends and how they affect the VACS Index and mortality rates.
- NA-ACCORD has been referenced as one of the data systems in the new IOM report monitoring HIV care in the US. Link
- VACS has received a Notice of Award for COMpAAAS. Congratulations to all!
- Our next 2011 VACS Scientific Meeting will take place October 12-14, 2011. Click here.
From 2010:
HSR&D Evidence Synthesis: Comparing Care in VA vs. Non-VA Settings.
The Public Health Strategic Health Care Group is pleased to announce the release of Clinical Case Registry (CCR) reports on 10 ten measures of HIV care quality that have been endorsed by the National Quality Forum, a nonprofit organization that aims to improve the quality of healthcare in the United States by endorsing national consensus standards for measuring and publicly reporting on performance of health care organizations and providers.
These NQF measures cover several aspects of general medical and HIV HIV-specific care. These reports on VHA performance in 2009 on these NQF measures of HIV care quality were produced by the VHA Center for Quality Management in Public Health and are posted here.
These NQF measures are applied to a population of Veterans with HIV infection in VHA care that differs somewhat from the population described by National HIV Registry Reports. NQF measures have additional requirements for inclusion. For example, unlike the Registry Reports, use of these NQF measures requires that patients be alive at the end of the calendar year, have been diagnosed as known to be HIV-positive by the first half of the year and, as at a minimum for most measures, require that the patients be engaged in VHA care. Because of these differences in inclusion criteria, the numbers of patients in these NQF measures differs from the number numbers of patients in similar National HIV Registry Reports.
A detailed analysis of 2008 VHA performance on these NQF measures was recently published in the Archives of Internal Medicine (2010; 170(14):1239-1246).
President Barack Obama announced the National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS). The development of the Strategy was headed up by the Office of National AIDS Policy. The three major goals of the NHAS was to reduce infection rates, increase access to care, and reduce related health disparities among infected persons.
The Center for Quality Management in Public Health, Public Health Strategic Health Care Group is pleased to announce that the Clinical Case Registry (CCR) reportsfor HIV care in 2009 are now available on the VA intranet.
- Link(please note, you must view this from a VA computer)
These reports cover several aspects of patient demographics, ARV treatment rates and other important clinical topics related to HIV care. We urge you to review this clinical information for your station, VISN and nationally. As you will see, there are over 24,000 Veterans who have been diagnosed with HIV and are in care nationwide in 2009.
For Scientific Presentations in 2010 click here
Scientific Presentations in 2012
JULY 2012
19th International AIDS Society Conference (IAS)
- Webcast of Amy Justice's "HIV at 50" talk link
MAY 2012
19th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI)
- Webcast of Amy Justice's "Aging with HIV: One Size Does Not Fit All" talk link
Scientific Presentations in 2011
FEBRUARY 2011
28th National Meeting of VA's Health Services Research and Development Service (HSR&D)
- “Implementation of a Text-Mining-Based Clinical Decision Support Tool to Improve the Management of Pulmonary Nodules” Garla V, et al. [oral] Link
- "Accounting for Symptom Severity and Other Item Level Characteristics Yields a More Precise Measure of Depression" Kudel I, et al. [poster]
- "Rural Residence and Adoption of a Novel HIV Therapy in a National, Equal-access Healthcare System" Ohl Michael, et al. [poster]
Healthcare Informations and Management Systems Society
- "Identifying Homeless Veterans from Clinical Notes" Kashyap, N. et al. [poster]
- “HIV Is Associated with Clinically Confirmed Myocardial Infarction after Adjustment for Smoking and Other Risk Factors” Frieberg M, et al. [poster]
18th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI)
- “HIV Is Associated with Clinically Confirmed Myocardial Infarction after Adjustment for Smoking and Other Risk Factors” Frieberg M, et al. [poster]
- "Differences in mortality rates among treated patients according to geographical origin and ethnicity/race: the Antiretroviral Therapy Cohort Collaboration (ART-CC)" Jarrin I, et al. [poster]
- “A Prognostic Index for Those Aging with HIV: Extension of the VACS Index to Those on cART” Justice A, et al. [poster] Link
- “Biomarkers of Inflammation, Coagulation, and Monocyte Activation Are Strongly Associated with the VACS Index among Veterans on cART” Justice A, et al. [poster] Link
- "Clinical Application of a Risk Index for People Aging on ART" Justice A, et al. [oral] for NA-ACCORD Steering Committee Meeting
MARCH 2011
15th IWHOD International Workshop on HIV Observational Databases
- “Improved Mortality after HAART Initiation in Two Cohorts with Free Access to Medical Care: Experience from the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs” Guest J, et al. [poster]
- “Risk Factors for Vitamin D Deficiency Among Veterans Infected with HIV” Guest J, et al. [poster]
- "Methodology to Identify and Confirm Hepatic Decompensation Events" LoRe V, et al. [poster]
- “High FIB4 Index Predicts Increased Liver Cancer Risk in HIV-Infected Patients, Regardless of Hepatitis Co-Infection” Park L, et al. [oral]
- “Capture of Acute Myocardial Infarctions Occurring at Non-VA Hospitals by Outpatient, VA Healthcare System ICD-9 Codes” Rabbit T, et al. [poster] Link
- “Performance of the Refined VACS Risk Index During the First 12 Months of Antiretroviral Therapy among US and European Subjects” Tate J, et al. [oral]
- “Sex Differences in Mortality Rates among HIV-positive Patients: The Antiretroviral Therapy Cohort Collaboration (ART-CC)” Justice AC, et al. [poster]
Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS: AIDS Science Day 2011
- "Patient Empowerment Impacts Medication Adherence among HIV-Positive Patients in the Veterans’ Health Administration" Pham, et al. [poster] Link
APRIL 2011
13th International Conference on Malignancies in AIDS and Other Acquired Immunodeficiencies (ICMAOI)
MAY 2011
2011 American Conference for the Treatment of HIV (ACTHIV)
2011 American Thoracic Society (ATS) International Conference
- "Lung Complications of Chronic HIV Infection: Prevalence, Pathogenesis, and Physiology" Akgun K, et al. [poster]
Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Geriatrics Society
- "HIV Infection, Fragility Fractures and Age" Womack J, et al. [poster]
Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM)
- "Symptoms on Atripla vs. Other cART Regimens" Edelman J, et al. [poster] Link
JUNE 2011
Annual Research Meeting (ARM)
National Library of Medicine (NLM) Informatics Training Conference
34th NIAAA-funded Satellite meeting at the upcoming Research Society on Alcoholism (RSA) Scientific Meeting
The College on Problems of Drug Dependence (CPDD)
- "Unhealthy alcohol and illicit drug use are associated with decreased quality of HIV care" Korthius T, et al. [poster]
JULY 2011
Building the Evidence Base to Improve Health Care and Outcomes for Women Veterans: VA Women's Health Services Research Conference
XVIX International AIDS Conference
AUGUST 2011
2011 Ryan White Grantee Meeting & 13th Annual Clinical Conference
Veterans Administration Employee Education System – HIV Live Meeting Presentation Cyber Seminar
SEPTEMBER 2011
Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC)
Yale GIM Research in Progress
- "HIV Infection and cardiovasclar diseases" Freiberg M, et al. [oral] Link
The Royal Society of Medicine HIV Conference
- "Overview of Ageing: How Can We Optimize Care in the Context of Multimorbidity?" Justice AC, et al. [oral] Link
OCTOBER 2011
49th Annual Meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA)
International Conference on Health Policy Statistics
- “Using Propensity Scores to Assess the Relationship Between HIV Status and Acute Myocardial Infarction in the Veterans Aging Cohort Study” Justice AC, et al. [poster]
VA Central Office
- "The Veterans Aging Cohort Study" Justice AC, et al. [oral]
NOVEMBER 2011
American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) 2011 Annual Symposium
International Conference on Malignancies in AIDS and Other Acquired Immunodeficiencies
- Multimorbidity, Aging, and Cancer Screening: An Individualized Approach” Justice AC, et al. [oral]
American Heart Association Scientific Sessions
- "The Association Between Race, HIV Infection Status, and Heart Failure" Justice AC, et al. [oral]
