Phylodynamics Helps to Evaluate the Impact of an HIV Prevention Intervention.

Assessment of the long-term population-level effects of HIV interventions is an ongoing public health challenge. Following the implementation of a Transmission Reduction Intervention Project (TRIP) in Odessa, Ukraine, in 2013-2016, we obtained HIV gene sequences and used phylogenetics to identify HIV transmission clusters. We further applied the birth-death skyline model to the sequences from Odessa ( = 275) and Kyiv ( = 92) in order to estimate changes in the epidemic's effective reproductive number () and rate of becoming uninfectious (.

Social network approaches to locating people recently infected with HIV in Odessa, Ukraine.

Introduction: This paper examines the extent to which an intervention succeeded in locating people who had recently become infected with HIV in the context of the large-scale Ukrainian epidemic. Locating and intervening with people who recently became infected with HIV (people with recent infection, or PwRI) can reduce forward HIV transmission and help PwRI remain healthy.

Methods: The Transmission Reduction Intervention Project (TRIP) recruited recently-infected and longer-term infected seeds in Odessa, Ukraine, in 2013 to 2016, and asked them to help recruit their extended risk network members.

Network Research Experiences in New York and Eastern Europe: Lessons for the Southern US in Understanding HIV Transmission Dynamics.

Purpose: This paper presents an overview of different kinds of risk and social network methods and the kinds of research questions each can address.

Recent Findings: It also reviews what network research has discovered about how network characteristics are associated with HIV and other infections, risk behaviors, preventive behaviors, and care, and discusses some ways in which network-based public health interventions have been conducted. Based on this, risk and social network research and interventions seem both feasible and valuable for addressing the many public health and social problems raised by the widespread use of opioids in the US South.

Molecular Analysis of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 (HIV-1)-Infected Individuals in a Network-Based Intervention (Transmission Reduction Intervention Project): Phylogenetics Identify HIV-1-Infected Individuals With Social Links.

Background: The Transmission Reduction Intervention Project (TRIP) is a network-based intervention that aims at decreasing human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) spread. We herein explore associations between transmission links as estimated by phylogenetic analyses, and social network-based ties among persons who inject drugs (PWID) recruited in TRIP.

Methods: Phylogenetic trees were inferred from HIV-1 sequences of TRIP participants.

Risk network approaches to locating undiagnosed HIV cases in Odessa, Ukraine.

Introduction: Providing HIV healthcare and Treatment as Prevention both depend on diagnosing HIV cases, preferably soon after initial infection. We hypothesized that tracing risk networks recruits higher proportions of undiagnosed positives than outreach-based testing or respondent-driven sampling (RDS) in Odessa, Ukraine.

Methods: The Transmission Reduction Intervention Project (TRIP) used risk network tracing to recruit sexual and injection networks of recently-infected and longer-term infected (LTs) seeds (2013 to 2016).