Aaloke Mody, MD, assistant professor of medicine and Elvin Geng, MD, MPH, professor of medicine, are co-investigators on the recently funded $4.5 million Gates Foundation grant titled “Person-Centered approaches to Viremia: Connection, Rapport, and Engagement (P-CoRE).” Led by collaborators at the Centre for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia (CIDRZ), this project aims to employ a stakeholder-engaged process for developing and evaluating a tailored, scalable, and sustainable person-centered package to address uncontrolled viremia across diverse populations living with HIV, including adolescents, adults, pregnant and breastfeeding women, and children.
As the landscape of HIV treatment expands, the persistent challenges of achieving long-term and sustained viral suppression present a significant barrier to ending the HIV epidemic. Routine HIV program data often inadequately report viremia, as they exclude individuals who drop out of care or go unmonitored for viral load.
The overarching goals of this project are to gain an updated understanding of the primary pathways leading to viremia and to design targeted solutions that intervene effectively, with a focus on the right populations and at the appropriate stages of care to enhance sustained viral suppression. The team plans to first identify populations, major care pathways, and prevailing drivers for viremia. Subsequently, they will employ a human-centered design process to co-develop a structured, person-centered package (P-CoRE) aimed at improving care systems for individuals currently facing challenges in treatment. Lastly, they will implement this package and assess improvements in viral suppression through a parallel-cluster randomized trial among priority populations.
Aaloke Mody, recently received the COVID Star award from the Department of Medicine.