Leveraging mHealth and peers to Engage African-Americans and Latinos in HIV care (LEAN)
Date:
04/01/2019
Locations:
Lead Investigators:
Summary
The overall goal of this proposal is to evaluate whether mHealth-enhanced Linkage to Care and Retention (mLTCR) can improve HIV outcomes among HIV-infected African Americans and Latinos compared to standard Linkage to Care and Retention (LTCR) programs. The mHealth-enhancement consists of two smartphone applications (app), one for patients and one for patient supporters (e.g. linkage officers, patient navigators, nurses, etc.), to help facilitate communication. Communication will focus on issues related to HIV care (e.g. appointment scheduling, transportation), as well as patient-directed requests. Using HIV surveillance data (e.g. unsuppressed HIV viral load), patient supporters will be automatically alerted if a patient has a high viral load and prompted to contact the patient. In addition to appointment reminders, patients will receive positive reinforcement behavioral text messages.