Retention Through mHealth for Adolescents and Young Adults With HIV in Care

Background: Of the adolescents and young adults with HIV (AYWH) who initiate in care, only about 50% remain in care at 12 months; in 2020, AYWH recorded a 50% increase in AIDS-related mortality. These poor clinical outcomes among AYWH are multi-factorial and largely influenced by their neurodevelopmental stage and differ by route of infection. Current interventions to retain AYWH in care are ineffective and do not address the neurodevelopmental issues of AYWH. Social media-based mHealth interventions may offer flexible and attractive features to AYWH to help overcome these barriers. Candidate: The goal of the proposed K43 Emerging Global Leader Award is to support The investigator's research training to attain independence as a clinician-scientist focused on improving treatment and care for AYWH in low resourced settings. The investigator is currently a research fellow at Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Uganda. The proposed study will enable training in three areas: 1) Qualitative research skills, including design, data collection, analysis and interpretation; 2) Behavioural science skills to better understand influences of adolescent behaviour and implications for mHealth-based intervention development and deployment; 3) Skills in statistical methods for clinical trials to conduct clinical trials and longitudinal data analysis. This application builds on The investigator's current clinical experience and background in epidemiology, as well as ongoing formative work in mHealth intervention development and a highly supportive, multidisciplinary team of mentors. Research: The research goals of this proposal are to develop and test a psychosocial social media-based mHealth intervention to improve retention in care of AYWH attain viral suppression, therefore decreasing AIDS-related mortality and preventing onward HIV transmission. The investigator will identify the HIV knowledge gaps, experiences, and challenges among AYWH who are new or re-engaging in HIV care, characterizing these factors by route of infection (i.e., perinatal vs non-perinatal) among AYWH in resource limited populations.