The Effect of a Tobacco Use Reduction Program on the Prevalence of Smoking and Tobacco Use and Quitting Behavior Among People Living With HIV/AIDS in Michigan.

HIV has evolved from a serious infectious disease to a manageable chronic disease. Tobacco use has a devastating effect on the health of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWH). The Michigan Tobacco Use Reduction Program for PLWH was established in 2015 to learn about tobacco use among PLWH, gather information on entities that provide health care services to PLWH, and improve tobacco treatment services for this population. The program offers evidence-based treatment interventions to all PLWH who are tobacco users, eligible for the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, and served by AIDS service organizations in Michigan. This evaluation had 3 primary outcomes: 1) rates of smoking and tobacco use among program clients, 2) the percentage of clients who made a quit attempt in the previous 12 months, and 3) the types of tobacco cessation methods used by clients. All data were self-reported in 3 surveys, one each in 2015, 2017, and 2021. The rate of cigarette smoking overall among clients decreased significantly from 49.5% in 2015 to 41.5% in 2017. The percentage of clients who made a quit attempt increased from 37.0% in 2015 to 41.9% in 2017; in 2021, this rate was 54.4%. By age, in all 3 survey years, the highest rate of tobacco use was among clients aged 35 to 44 years (range, 48.4%-57.4%). Smoking rates declined significantly from 2015 to 2017 among African American (50.5% to 42.8%) and White clients (49.8% to 39.9%). The most frequently used method of tobacco cessation was medications prescribed by a physician (range, 20%-30%). State tobacco control programs are encouraged to collaborate with their state HIV/AIDS bureaus to create similar programs to treat tobacco use among PLWH.

Operationalizing a Data to Care Strategy in Michigan Through Cross-Agency Collaborations.

BACKGROUND: For persons with HIV infection (PWH), viral load suppression is essential to maintaining health and reducing the likelihood of HIV transmission. Data to Care (D2C) is an important strategy for improving HIV outcomes but may be resource-intensive to execute. SETTING: In 2016, Michigan joined the HIV Health Improvement Affinity Group to strengthen D2C partnerships between its Medicaid and HIV program. Goals included establishing routine data sharing, matching data sources to understand health outcomes, and collaborating to turn data into action. METHODS: Michigan established data use agreements to assess gaps in care for PWH enrolled in Medicaid. The HIV Surveillance Program used Link Plus to match surveillance records on PWH to Medicaid's active beneficiary file to identify PWH who were beneficiaries as of December 31, 2015. RESULTS: Matching the 2,300,877 Michigan Medicaid beneficiaries with the 15,845 PWH in HIV surveillance yielded 4822 matched PWH enrolled in Medicaid in 2015. Of Medicaid beneficiaries with HIV, 597 had no evidence of receiving HIV care, representing 20% of all Michigan residents with HIV and not in care in 2015. CONCLUSION: D2C is an effective strategy for improving HIV care continuum outcomes but can be relatively inefficient if implementation models rely solely on public health infrastructure. Through the HIV Health Improvement Affinity Group, Michigan's Medicaid and HIV programs leveraged their combined data assets to evaluate and improve care quality and outcomes for PWH on Medicaid. Partnerships between Medicaid and public health offer attractive mechanisms for potentially increasing efficiency and effectiveness of D2C investments.

Cancer treatment disparities in HIV-infected individuals in the United States.

PURPOSE: HIV-infected individuals with cancer have worse survival rates compared with their HIV-uninfected counterparts. One explanation may be differing cancer treatment; however, few studies have examined this. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We used HIV and cancer registry data from Connecticut, Michigan, and Texas to study adults diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, Hodgkin's lymphoma, or cervical, lung, anal, prostate, colorectal, or breast cancers from 1996 to 2010. We used logistic regression to examine associations between HIV status and cancer treatment, adjusted for cancer stage and demographic covariates. For a subset of local-stage cancers, we used logistic regression to assess the relationship between HIV status and standard treatment modality. We identified predictors of cancer treatment among individuals with both HIV and cancer. RESULTS: We evaluated 3,045 HIV-infected patients with cancer and 1,087,648 patients with cancer without HIV infection. A significantly higher proportion of HIV-infected individuals did not receive cancer treatment for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL; adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 1.67; 95% CI, 1.41 to 1.99), lung cancer (aOR, 2.18; 95% CI, 1.80 to 2.64), Hodgkin's lymphoma (aOR, 1.77; 95% CI, 1.33 to 2.37), prostate cancer (aOR, 1.79; 95% CI, 1.31 to 2.46), and colorectal cancer (aOR, 2.27; 95% CI, 1.38 to 3.72). HIV infection was associated with a lack of standard treatment modality for local-stage DLBCL (aOR, 2.02; 95% CI, 1.50 to 2.72), non-small-cell lung cancer (aOR, 2.43; 95% CI, 1.46 to 4.03), and colon cancer (aOR, 4.77; 95% CI, 1.76 to 12.96). Among HIV-infected individuals, factors independently associated with lack of cancer treatment included low CD4 count, male sex with injection drug use as mode of HIV exposure, age 45 to 64 years, black race, and distant or unknown cancer stage. CONCLUSION: HIV-infected individuals are less likely to receive treatment for some cancers than uninfected people, which may affect survival rates.

Drug-resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae in Michigan.

The increasing prevalence of quinolone-resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae (QRNG) in the United States is a cause for concern. Detecting resistance is complicated by the widespread use of molecular tests that do not provide isolates for susceptibility testing. The Michigan Department of Community Health developed a sentinel surveillance program to detect antimicrobial drug resistance in N. gonorrhoeae. Sentinel surveillance from 11 laboratories submitted 1,122 isolates for antimicrobial drug susceptibility testing and detected 2 clusters of QRNG from January 2003 to September 2004. These clusters were epidemiologically distinct: one involved young, heterosexual youth, and the other involved older men who have sex with men. This finding led to changes in local treatment recommendations that limited spread of resistant strains. Development of the sentinel program, collection of data, and epidemiologic analysis of the clusters are discussed.