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Resilience and optimism may not only have main effects on health outcomes, but may also moderate and buffer negative effects of stressors. We examined whether dispositional resilience and optimism moderate the associations between HIV-related stigma in health care settings and health-related outcomes (trust in HIV health care providers and depression symptoms) among women living with HIV (WLHIV). One thousand four hundred five WLHIV in nine US cities completed validated questionnaires for cross-sectional analyses. Higher self-reported experienced and anticipated stigma and lower resilience and optimism were associated with higher depression symptoms and with lower trust in HIV providers. Importantly, resilience moderated the effects of experienced stigma (but not of anticipated stigma): When resilience was high, the association of experienced stigma with higher depression symptoms and lower trust in HIV providers was weaker compared with when resilience was low. Further, significant moderation effects suggested that when optimism was high, experienced and anticipated stigma was both less strongly associated with depression symptoms and with lower trust in one's HIV care providers compared with when optimism was low. Thus, the effects of experienced stigma on depression symptoms and provider trust were moderated by both resilience and optimism, but the effects of anticipated stigma were moderated only by optimism. Our findings suggest that in addition to their main effects, resilience and optimism may function as buffers against the harmful effects of stigma in health care settings. Therefore, optimism and resilience may be valuable intervention targets to reduce depression symptoms or improve trust in providers among populations that experience or anticipate stigma, such as WLHIV.

The prevalence of HIV-associated neurocognitive impairment persists despite highly effective antiretroviral therapy (ART). In this study we explore the role of internalized stigma, acceptance of negative societal characterizations, and perceptions about people living with HIV (PLWH) on neurocognitive functioning (executive function, learning, memory, attention/working memory, psychomotor speed, fluency, motor skills) in a national cohort of women living with HIV (WLWH) in the United States. We utilized observational data from a multicenter study of WLWH who are mostly African American living in low-resource settings. Neurocognitive function was measured using an eight-test battery. A multiple linear regression model was constructed to investigate the relationship between internalized stigma and overall neurocognitive functioning (mean of all neurocognitive domain standardized T-scores), adjusting for age, education, race, previous neuropsychological battery scores, illicit drug use, viral load, and years on ART. Our analysis revealed that internalized HIV-related stigma is significantly associated with worse performance on individual domain tests and overall neurocognitive performance (B = 0.27, t = 2.50, p = 0.01). This suggests HIV-related internalized stigma may be negatively associated with neurocognitive functioning for WLWH. This finding highlights a specific psychosocial factor associated with poor neurocognitive function that may be targeted to better promote the health of PLWH. Future research on the longitudinal relationship between these variables and the effects of other stigma dimensions on poor neurocognitive function would provide further insights into the pathways explaining the relationship between internalized stigma and neurocognition.

Stigma in health care settings can have negative consequences on women living with HIV, such as increasing the likelihood of missed visits and reducing trust in their clinical providers. Informed by prior stigma research and considering knowledge gaps related to the effect of patient-provider race concordance, we conducted this study to assess if patient-provider race concordance moderates the expected association between HIV-related stigma in health care settings and patients' trust in their providers. Moderation analyses were conducted using Women's Interagency HIV Study data (N = 931). We found significant main effects for patient-provider race concordance. Higher experienced stigma was associated with lower trust in providers in all patient-provider race combinations [White-White: B = -0.89, standard error (SE) = 0.14, p = 0.000, 95% confidence interval, CI (-1.161 to -0.624); Black patient-White provider: B = -0.19, SE = 0.06, p = 0.003, 95% CI (-0.309 to -0.062); and Black-Black: B = -0.30, SE = 0.14, p = 0.037, 95% CI (-0.575 to -0.017)]. Higher anticipated stigma was also associated with lower trust in providers [White-White: B = -0.42, SE = 0.07, p = 0.000, 95% CI (-0.552 to -0.289); Black patient-White provider: B = -0.17, SE = 0.03, p = 0.000, 95% CI (-0.232 to -0.106); and Black-Black: B = -0.18, SE = 0.06, p = 0.002, 95% CI (-0.293 to -0.066)]. Significant interaction effects indicated that the negative associations between experienced and anticipated HIV-related stigma and trust in providers were stronger for the White-White combination compared with the others. Thus, we found that significant relationships between HIV-related experienced and anticipated stigma in health care settings and trust in providers exist and that these associations vary across different patient-provider race combinations. Given that reduced trust in providers is associated with antiretroviral medication nonadherence and higher rates of missed clinical visits, interventions to address HIV-related stigma in health care settings may improve continuum of care outcomes.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is increasingly common among women with HIV, but literature on nonlipid CVD risk factor management is lacking. We examined semiannual trends from 2006 to 2014 in hypertension treatment and control (blood pressure

Since the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) and the subsequent increased life expectancy in HIV-infected persons, non-HIV-related diseases have become an important cause of morbidity and mortality. This cross-sectional study reports the prevalence of overweight and obesity, and sociodemographic, psychological, and substance use-related risk factors for elevated body mass index (BMI) among 2157 HIV-seropositive (HIV+) in comparison to 730 HIV-seronegative (HW-) participants in the Women's Interagency HIV Study (WIHS). Separate univariable and multivariate linear regression analyses were completed for HIV+ and HIV- women. Our study revealed a similar proportion of obesity (body mass index [BMI] [greater than or equal to] 30) among HIV+ (33%) and HIV- women (29%) (p = 0.12), as well as comparable median BMI (HIV+: 26.1 versus HIV-: 26.7, p = 0.16). HIV+ compared to HIV- women, respectively, were significantly (p < 0.01) older (median = 35.6 versus. 32.5), but similar (p = 0.97) by race/ethnicity (57% African American, 28% Hispanic, and 15% white for both). In multivariate models for both HIV+ and HIV- women, African American race/ethnicity was significantly (p < 0.05) associated with higher BMI, while higher quality of life score and illicit hard drug use were associated with lower BMI. Additionally, smoking, alcohol use, markers of advanced HIV infection (AIDS diagnosis, elevated HIV viral load, low CD4 count), and a history of antiretroviral therapy use (ART) were also associated with lower BMI among HIV+ women. In conclusion, risk factors for elevated BMI were similar for H1V+ and HIV- women in the WIHS. For HIV+ women, all markers of advanced HIV infection and ART use were additionally associated with lower BMI. DOI: 10.1089/apc.2009.0175

We previously demonstrated that HIV infection is associated with peripheral and central lipoatrophy in women. We now describe the association of specific antiretroviral drugs (ARV) with body fat changes over a four-year period from 1999 to 2003. 775 HIV-positive and 205 HIV-negative women in the Women's Interagency HIV Study with anthropometric measurements, weight, bioelectric impedance analysis and ARV collected semiannually were included in analysis. Exposure to ARV was defined as report of use for 3 consecutive semiannual study visits. The average 6-month change in weight, percent total body fat, and circumference measurements (i.e., hip, waist, chest, arm, and thigh) was compared between those exposed and those unexposed to the specific ARV for any of the same three consecutive visits. Weight, percent total body fat, and hip, waist, thigh, chest, and arm circumferences decreased in HIV-positive women, but increased in HIV-negative women on average for every six-month interval over the 4-year study period. Among the HIV-positive women, didanosine was the only ARV associated with decreases in circumference measures in the hip (-0.65 cm, 95% confidence interval [CI]: -1.18, -0.12), waist (-0.71 cm, 95% CI: -1.37, -0.04), chest (-0.71 cm, 95% CI: -1.17, -0.26), and arm (-0.23 cm, 95% CI: -0.48, 0.03; p = 0.08). These prospective data suggest that fat loss continues to predominate in HIV-positive women and exposure to didanosine for at least 12 months may further worsen fat loss.