Program seeks Council approval for an Initiative titled “Innovative Epidemiological Approaches for Understanding Long-term Health Outcomes of HIV-exposed Uninfected (HEU) Populations”. This initiative will support HIV epidemiology research that establishes, monitors and evaluates the large cohorts needed to understand the effects of in utero exposure to antiretroviral medications and/or HIV on mortality, morbidity and health outcomes in the United States and/or international settings.
Although there has been huge progress in the reduction of the number of HIV-infected infants through expansion of HIV prevention of mother-to-child transmission programs, the number of HEU infants is increasing worldwide. As individual antenatal antiretroviral (ARV) drugs and combination anti-retroviral treatments continue to evolve, potential toxicities of different regimens require further, long-term investigation. Such unknown effects on overall health outcomes need to be understood in order to better define interventions for this growing population.
The purpose is to develop large, less intensively-followed HEU cohorts/populations of infants, children, adolescents, and young adults in order to define individual and contextual long-term outcomes. An additional goal of this initiative is to establish links between the cohorts with their maternal demographic and pregnancy information.
This proposed concept directly addresses several NICHD Vision themes, including Behavior and Environment, as well as the Maternal and Pediatric Infectious Disease Branch’s scientific priority to: Identify and investigate causes of adverse pregnancy and infant outcomes that may be associated with antiretroviral therapy in pregnancy and methods to prevent them.
Finally, this initiative addresses the overarching HIV/AIDS priorities of 1) HIV-associated coinfections, comorbidities, and other complications, and 2) Cross-cutting research for HIV/AIDS.
Program Contact
Sonia Lee
Maternal and Pediatric Infectious Disease Branch
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