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Observational Study
. 2018 Aug;22(8):2604-2614.
doi: 10.1007/s10461-018-2092-7.

Health Literacy and Demographic Disparities in HIV Care Continuum Outcomes

Peter F Rebeiro  1 , Tristan D McPherson  2 , Kathryn M Goggins  3 , Megan Turner  4 , Sally S Bebawy  4 , William B Rogers  5 , Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein  6 , Anna K Person  4 , Timothy R Sterling  4 , Sunil Kripalani  3   7 , April C Pettit  4
Affiliations
Observational Study

Health Literacy and Demographic Disparities in HIV Care Continuum Outcomes

Peter F Rebeiro et al. AIDS Behav. 2018 Aug.

Abstract

Studies evaluating the association between human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection continuum of care outcomes [antiretroviral (ART) adherence, retention in care, viral suppression] and health literacy have yielded conflicting results. Moreover, studies from the southern United States, a region of the country disproportionately affected by the HIV epidemic and low health literacy, are lacking. We conducted an observational cohort study among 575 people living with HIV (PLWH) at the Vanderbilt Comprehensive Care Clinic (Nashville, Tennessee). Health literacy was measured using the brief health literacy screen, a short tool which can be administered verbally by trained clinical personnel. Low health literacy was associated with a lack of viral suppression, but not with poor ART adherence or poor retention. Age and racial disparities in continuum of care outcomes persisted after accounting for health literacy, suggesting that factors in addition to health literacy must be addressed in order to improve outcomes for PLWH.

Keywords: ART adherence; Health literacy; Human immunodeficiency virus; Retention in care; Viral suppression.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Violin plot for distribution of BHLS scores of the study population
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Population selection diagram for analyses of ART adherence, retention in care, and viral suppression outcomes
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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