Publications by authors named "Rochelle P Walensky"
Background: Pediatric international travelers account for nearly half of measles importations in the United States. Over one third of pediatric international travelers depart the United States without the recommended measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccinations: 2 doses for travelers ≥12 months and 1 dose for travelers 6 to <12 months.
Methods: We developed a model to compare 2 strategies among a simulated cohort of international travelers (6 months to <6 years): (1) No pretravel health encounter (PHE): travelers depart with baseline MMR vaccination status; (2) PHE: MMR-eligible travelers are offered vaccination.
Background: The HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) 083 trial demonstrated the superiority of long-acting injectable cabotegravir (CAB-LA) compared with oral emtricitabine-tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (F/TDF) for HIV preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP).
Objective: To identify the maximum price premium (that is, greatest possible price differential) that society should be willing to accept for the additional benefits of CAB-LA over tenofovir-based PrEP among men who have sex with men and transgender women (MSM/TGW) in the United States.
Design: Simulation, cost-effectiveness analysis.
Article Synopsis
- * Conducted in a community health center near Cape Town, the study involved 458 ART-experienced PWH, finding that many had limited nutritional diversity in their diets and insufficient engagement in regular physical activity.
- * Despite most participants recognizing the health benefits of exercise, there was a notable lack of awareness regarding the contributors to obesity and its associated health risks, indicating a need for targeted interventions to address diet and exercise habits in this population as they age. *
Background: The World Health Organization (WHO) human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) diagnostic strategy requires 6 rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs). Point-of-care nucleic acid tests (POC NATs) are costlier, less sensitive, but more specific than RDTs.
Methods: We simulated a 1-time screening process in Côte d'Ivoire (CI; undiagnosed prevalence: 1.
Background: There are a wide variety of infectious complications of injection drug use. Understanding the trajectory of these complications might inform the development of an early warning system for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) outbreaks that occur regularly among people who inject drugs (PWID).
Methods: A distributed lag Poisson regression model in the Bayesian setting was used to examine temporal patterns in the incidence of injection-associated infectious diseases and their association with HIV cases in Lawrence and Lowell, Massachusetts between 2005 and 2018.
Clinical, Laboratory, and Radiologic Characteristics of Patients With Initial False-Negative Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Nucleic Acid Amplification Test Results.
Open Forum Infect Dis
January 2021
Article Synopsis
- Concerns about false-negative results in SARS-CoV-2 testing have led to recommendations for repeat testing, especially in suspected COVID-19 cases.
- A study reviewing results from over 15,000 adults found a low FN rate (2.2%) among those who underwent repeat testing, primarily affecting symptomatic individuals.
- Results suggest that repeated testing, particularly of lower respiratory tract specimens, is crucial for accurate diagnosis in symptomatic patients during high incidence periods of COVID-19.
In 2010, the US health insurance system underwent one of its most substantial transformations with the passage of the Affordable Care Act, which increased coverage for millions of people in the USA, including those with and at risk of HIV. Even so, the system of HIV care and prevention services in the USA is a complex patchwork of payers, providers, and financing mechanisms. People with HIV are primarily covered by Medicaid, Medicare, private insurance, or a combination of these; many get care through other programmes, particularly the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, which serves as the nation's safety net for people with HIV who remain uninsured or underinsured but offers modest to no support for prevention services.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWith more than 1·2 million people living with HIV in the USA, a complex epidemic across the large and diverse country, and a fragmented health-care system marked by widening health disparities, the US HIV epidemic requires sustained scientific and public health attention. The epidemic has been stubbornly persistent; high incidence densities have been sustained over decades and the epidemic is increasingly concentrated among racial, ethnic, and sexual and gender minority communities. This fact remains true despite extraordinary scientific advances in prevention, treatment, and care-advances that have been led, to a substantial degree, by US-supported science and researchers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- Developed a clinical decision support system (CDSS) called CORAL to streamline the evaluation and management of hospitalized patients under investigation for COVID-19, aiming to reduce transmission risks and optimize healthcare resources.
- Pre- and post-implementation results showed that CORAL decreased the frequency of unnecessary retesting, shortened the time and duration of patient isolation, and significantly reduced the workload for infectious disease (ID) physicians.
- CORAL proved to be effective in evaluating PUIs, with no positive test results within 7 days after precautions were lifted, highlighting its reliability in safely discontinuing isolation.
Article Synopsis
- The Adolescent Medicine Trials Network for HIV/AIDS Interventions is assessing treatment adherence interventions to boost virologic suppression among youth with HIV.
- Using a microsimulation model, researchers compared standard-of-care with a hypothetical adherence intervention that improves virologic suppression by 10%.
- The findings suggest that the adherence intervention could lower HIV transmissions and deaths while increasing life expectancy, making it cost-effective even with modest improvements in treatment efficacy.
This study compares all-cause excess mortality and COVID-19–related mortality during the early pandemic period (March-July 2020) with unintentional drug overdoses, the usual leading cause of death in young adults, during the same period in 2018 among adults aged 25 to 44 years.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCommunication interventions to enhance linkage to HIV care have been successful in sub-Saharan Africa but have not been assessed among refugees. Refugees and Ugandan nationals participating in HIV testing in Nakivale Refugee Settlement were offered weekly phone call and short message service (SMS) reminders. We assessed linkage to care and predictors of linkage within 90 days of testing, comparing Intervention participants to those unwilling or ineligible to participate (Non-Intervention).
View Article and Find Full Text PDF