Deborah R. Gustafson
SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, NY·Public Health & Epidemiology
People living with HIV now often reach middle and older age. This raises new questions about how heart disease, lung disease and other age-related conditions develop in them.
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
people living with HIV
MACS/WIHS Combined Cohort Study
prospective cohort
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Mar 2032
What they work on
- Investigate cardiovascular and pulmonary (heart and lung) health outcomes in people living with HIV, using decades of follow-up data from the Brooklyn site of the MACS/WIHS Combined Cohort Study (MWCCS).
- Apply new approaches to study aging and age-related comorbidities, meaning illnesses that tend to appear together, in middle-aged and older MWCCS participants with and without HIV.
- Examine how participants self-manage several chronic conditions at once, focusing on medication adherence (taking medicines as prescribed), using the cohort's multilevel longitudinal data.
More about the research
Long-running studies that follow the same people over decades are one of the best ways to answer such questions. The MACS/WIHS Combined Cohort Study (MWCCS) is a national study of people living with HIV and related health conditions. MACS and WIHS are two earlier HIV studies that were merged into it. It has collected data on health, the factors that shape health, quality of life and survival for decades.
Why it matters
Many people with HIV are aging with several chronic illnesses at once. Findings from the Brooklyn site may inform prevention strategies, treatments and policies for heart and lung disease and other age-related conditions. Its focus on medication adherence and managing multiple illnesses could help people with HIV live longer with less disability. The cohort's diverse, long-term data could also support future research on emerging health issues.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Tracey Wilson
SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, NY·Public Health & Epidemiology
Characterize longitudinal, multidimensional patterns of social connection before and during the COVID era in the MACS/WIHS Combined Cohort Study, and identify social, behavioral and genomic predictors including polygenic risk scores.
Charles Rinaldo
University of Pittsburgh, PA·Microbiology & Immunology
Measure neutralizing antibody function and B lymphocyte responses after Pfizer or Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccination in 200 men and women with HIV and 50 HIV-negative controls from the MWCCS.
Cecile Lahiri
Emory University, GA·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Test whether markers of HIV persisting in rectal tissue are linked to whole-body inflammation, immune activation, and the presence and progression of early, symptom-free heart disease, using repeated heart imaging and paired blood and rectal biopsies in about 100 virally suppressed people with HIV.
The school
SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University: 3 labs on PI Pages, $37M a year on research, 5 research doctorates a year.
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