INCREASED HIV VIRAL SUPPRESSION during COVID-19 among US URBAN PEOPLE with HIV

ABSTRACT

Background: After COVID-19 shelter-in-place (SIP) orders on 3/16/2020, viral suppression (VS) rates initially decreased within a safety-net HIV clinic in San Francisco, with greater decreases among homeless people living with HIV (PLWH). We sought to understand if (1) proactive outreach to provide social services, (2) scaling up of in-person visits for most patients and drop-in visits at the clinic, and (3) expansion of housing programs could reverse this decline. Methods: We assessed VS 24 months before and 13 months after SIP using mixed-effects logistic regression and propensity score methods, followed by interrupted time series (ITS) analysis to examine changes in the rate of viral suppression per month. Loss to follow-up was assessed via active clinic outreach and tracing using Kaplan-Meier methods. Results: The cohort contained 1816 patients with a median age of 51;12% female, 14% unstably housed, and 15% with CD4+-cell counts <200 cells/mm3. The adjusted odds of VS increased 1.34-fold following the intervention (95% CI 1.21-1.46), with similar results using inverse probability weighting (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) 1.31;95% CI 1.17-1.46). Results from the ITS analysis show that the odds of VS continuously increased by 1.05-fold per month over the post-intervention period (95% CI 1.01-1.08, Figure). Proactive phone outreach successfully reached 90.0% of the clinic to offer services. The one-year cumulative loss to follow-up rate was 3.2% (95% CI 2.5-3.9%). The proportion of total attended visits that were telephone visits decreased from a maximum of 64.9% to a minimum of 10.1% at the end of the analysis period. The rate of viral load monitoring decreased by 15% after the institution of SIP (95% CI 0.83-0.88). Among homeless PLWH, the AOR for VS was 1.70 (95% CI 1.24-2.34) and there was a 5.9% increase in VS per month using ITS methods (95% CI 1.0-12.3%). Conclusion: After an initial destabilization in VS in a large safety-net clinic following SIP orders, the VS rate increased following scale-up of in-person visits, clinic outreach to patients, intensification of social services during this time, and access to COVID-related housing programs. The loss to follow-up rate was similar or lower compared to prior years. Maintaining in-person care for underserved patients, with flexible telemedicine options, along with provision of social services and permanent expansion of housing assistance programs, will be needed to support VS among underserved populations during the COVID-19 pandemic.