Conversations from CROI 2015: Dr. Laura Cheever

Colleagues from HRSA last week that demonstrated the effectiveness of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program. We had the opportunity to discuss these research findings with Dr. Laura Cheever, HRSA’s Associate Administrator for the HIV/AIDS Bureau, which manages the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program (RWHAP). She provided us with an overview of the poster presented at the conference of HIV and other infectious disease researchers held in Seattle last week.

The poster was titled “Impact of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program on HIV Treatment Outcomes in the U.S” . It presents analysis of data from CDC’s Medical Monitoring Project from 2009-2012 to assess the association between receiving RWHAP assistance, alone or in combination with other sources of healthcare coverage, and HIV treatment outcomes among HIV-infected adults in medical care.

As Dr. Cheever explains in this video interview, the analysis found that uninsured and under-insured persons living with HIV infection who received RWHAP assistance were more likely to be prescribed ART and be virally suppressed than those with many other healthcare payer types.