Aligning implementation research and clinical operations: a partnership to promote implementation research in primary care.

The rigorous evaluation of the implementation of evidence into routine practice in a health system requires strong alignment between research and clinical operational teams. Implementation researchers benefit from understanding operational processes and contextual factors when designing data collection while operational teams gain an understanding of implementation frameworks and outcomes using both qualitative and quantitative data. However, interventions to build capacity for these evaluation partnerships-particularly those tailored for clinical operational practitioners-are limited.

Plan of Care Visits: Implementation During Hospitalization and Association With 30-Day Readmissions in a Large, Integrated Health Care System.

Background: Plan of Care of Visits (POCV), including the patient, nurse, and hospital provider were implemented across an integrated health system to improve provider-patient communication during hospitalization and patient outcomes.

Objectives: To assess POCV adoption after implementation, patient characteristics assosites were classified as teachsites were classified as teachsites were classified as teachsites were classified as ciated with POCV completion, and association of POCV with 30-day readmissions.

Methods: This retrospective cohort study utilized electronic medical record (EMR) data of 237,430 adult patients discharged to home from 11 hospitals from January 2020 to December 2022.

Phone-based psychosocial counseling for people living with HIV: Feasibility, acceptability and impact on uptake of psychosocial counseling services in Malawi.

People living with HIV experience psychosocial needs that often are not addressed. We designed an innovative low-resource model of phone-based psychosocial counseling (P-PSC). We describe cohort characteristics, acceptability, feasibility and utilization of P-PSC at health facilities supported by Baylor Foundation Malawi.

Intervention Fidelity to VITAL Start (Video Intervention to Inspire Treatment Adherence for Life) in a Randomized Controlled Trial Among Women Living With HIV in Malawi.

Background.: Intervention effectiveness in a randomized controlled trial is attributed to intervention fidelity. Measuring fidelity has increasing significance to intervention research and validity.

Economic costs and cost-effectiveness of conditional cash transfers for the uptake of services for the prevention of vertical HIV transmissions in a resource-limited setting.

Background: Prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) is critical for halting the HIV epidemic. However, innovative approaches to improve PMTCT uptake may be resource-intensive. We examined the economic costs and cost-effectiveness of conditional cash transfers (CCTs) for the uptake of PMTCT services in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The prevalence, incidence, and recurrence of intimate partner violence and its association with adverse childhood experiences among pregnant and breastfeeding women living with HIV in Malawi.

Background: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is associated with suboptimal HIV treatment outcomes, but its distribution and risk factors among certain subpopulations of people living with HIV in resource-limited settings are not well known. We examined the prevalence, incidence, and recurrence of IPV and its association with adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) among pregnant/breastfeeding women living with HIV in Malawi.

Methods: This study used longitudinal data for 455 pregnant women living with HIV continuously enrolled in the VITAL Start trial.

The relationship between adverse childhood experiences and common mental disorders among pregnant women living with HIV in Malawi.

Introduction: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have been linked to common mental disorders (CMDs) such as anxiety and depressive thoughts. We examined the prevalence of ACEs and their association with CMDs among pregnant women living with HIV (PWLHIV) in Malawi-an HIV endemic resource-limited setting.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional study of 798 PWLHIV enrolled in the VITAL Start trial in Malawi (10/2018 to 06/2021) (NCT03654898).

Development of a Blended Learning Approach to Delivering HIV-Assisted Contact Tracing in Malawi: Applied Theory and Formative Research.

Background: Despite progress toward the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS "95-95-95" targets (95% of HIV-positive persons tested, 95% of tested persons on treatment, and 95% of treated persons virally suppressed), a gap remains in achieving the first 95% target. Assisted contact tracing (ACT), in which health workers support HIV-positive index clients to recruit their contacts (sexual partners and children) for HIV testing, efficiently identifies HIV-positive persons in need of treatment. Although many countries, including Malawi, began implementing ACT, testing outcomes in routine settings have been worse than those in trial settings.

Video-Based Intervention for Improving Maternal Retention and Adherence to HIV Treatment: Patient Perspectives and Experiences.

VITAL Start is a video-based intervention aimed to improve maternal retention in HIV care and adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART) in Malawi. We explored the experiences of pregnant women living with HIV (PWLHIV) not yet on ART who received VITAL Start before ART initiation to assess the intervention's acceptability, feasibility, fidelity of delivery, and perceived impact. Between February and September 2019, we conducted semi-structured interviews with a convenience sample of 34 PWLHIV within one month of receiving VITAL Start.

The effects of community-based distribution of family planning services on contraceptive use: The case of a national scale-up in Malawi.

Rationale: Although many sub-Saharan African countries have scaled-up pilot projects of community-based distribution (CBD) of family planning services, the effects of the scaled-up CBDs on contraceptive use remain unclear.

Objective: We leveraged a national scale-up of Malawi's Learning and Innovation Population and Family Planning pilot to evaluate the effects of a scale-up of CBDs on contraceptive use. We also investigated whether education and income, two important determinants of contraceptive use behaviors, moderate the effects of the scaled-up CBDs.

Suboptimal geographic accessibility to comprehensive HIV care in the US: regional and urban-rural differences.

Achieving US state and municipal benchmarks to end the HIV epidemic and promote health equity requires access to comprehensive HIV care. However, this care may not be geographically accessible for all people living with HIV (PLHIV). We estimated county-level drive time and suboptimal geographic accessibility to HIV care across the contiguous US, assessing regional and urban-rural differences.

Structural barriers to comprehensive, coordinated HIV care: geographic accessibility in the US South.

Structural barriers to HIV care are particularly challenging in the US South, which has higher HIV diagnosis rates, poverty, uninsurance, HIV stigma, and rurality, and fewer comprehensive public health programs versus other US regions. Focusing on one structural barrier, we examined geographic accessibility to comprehensive, coordinated HIV care (HIVCCC) in the US South. We integrated publicly available data to study travel time to HIVCCC in 16 Southern states and District of Columbia.