Improving HIV and Alcohol-Related Outcomes Among HIV+ Persons in Clinic Settings

Alcohol consumption at harmful or hazardous levels among HIV-positive persons exacerbates health problems and accelerates HIV disease progression. Antiretroviral therapy (ART) has been the single most important treatment for people living with HIV to optimize viral suppression and slow disease progression. Adherence to ART has considerable public health implications, particularly given that optimal adherence decreases morbidity and mortality, decreases the potential for the development of drug resistant strains of HIV, and reduces HIV infectiousness.

Project PLUS (Positive Living through Understanding and Support) was the first (and to our knowledge only) theory-based behavioral intervention, which integrates motivational interviewing and cognitive-behavioral skills training, to demonstrate significant improvements in viral load, CD4 cell count, and self-reported adherence among a racially and ethnically diverse sample of HIV-positive women and men enrolled in a randomized controlled trial, and the first intervention for hazardous drinkers to demonstrate any significant effects. A clinic-based replication is the crucial next step in studying the intervention's effectiveness in the real world when delivered by HIV clinic providers to their patients.

In collaboration with medical providers at the Spencer Cox Center for Health at the Institute for Advanced Medicine, Mount Sinai Health System, the largest provider of HIV medical care in the New York City area, our goals are to better understand alcohol-related outcomes among HIV-positive persons over the lifespan and to conduct a multisite comparative effectiveness trial with three intensities of treatment-the PLUS intervention, an enhanced treatment as usual (eTAU) condition, and treatment as usual (TAU) condition-to test the clinical and cost-effectiveness of the PLUS intervention in reducing alcohol use and improving ART adherence, viral load, and CD4 counts among HIV-positive hazardous drinkers. This study has the potential to exert a sustained and powerful impact on the effectiveness of ART interventions for HIV-positive persons with problematic drinking.