Rutgers University researchers have been awarded a $3.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to launch one of the nation’s largest and most comprehensive studies examining cardiovascular and metabolic conditions among older adults living with HIV.
Funded by the NIH’s National Institute on Aging, the multi-year research project aims to address a growing healthcare challenge: as medical advances allow people with HIV to live longer, managing age-related chronic illnesses—such as heart disease, diabetes, and kidney disease—has become increasingly complex due to a lack of targeted clinical evidence.
While antiretroviral therapies have dramatically extended life expectancy for individuals with HIV, treatment guidelines for co-occurring age-related conditions have struggled to keep pace.
“We have made tremendous progress in helping people with HIV live longer, but the evidence guiding treatment of age-related conditions has not kept pace,” Chintan Dave, lead principal investigator on the project and a core member of the Center for Pharmacoepidemiology and Treatment Science at the Rutgers Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research, said. “Our study will help determine who is at greatest risk, where treatment gaps exist and which medications offer the greatest benefits with the fewest harms.”
Dave, who also serves as director of the Center for Health Outcomes, Policy and Economics and associate professor at the Rutgers Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, highlighted that standard clinical trials frequently underrepresent older adults managing multiple chronic conditions.
“By studying how medications are used and how patients fare in everyday clinical practice, we hope to generate evidence that better reflects the patients and treatment decisions clinicians face in the real world,” Dave added.
Co-led by principal investigator Stephanie Shiau, an associate professor at the Rutgers School of Public Health, the research team will analyze national Medicare records encompassing more than 45,000 adults aged 50 and older living with HIV, alongside comprehensive Medicaid and commercial insurance databases.
The broad scale of real-world data will allow investigators to evaluate treatment safety, measure medication effectiveness, and identify systemic disparities across diverse patient demographics and regional healthcare settings.
“As people with HIV live longer, we need to better understand the health challenges they face as they age,” Shiau explained. “By studying a large and diverse population of adults with HIV, we hope to identify disparities in care and generate evidence that can help improve their long-term health.”
The study’s findings are expected to serve as a vital resource for healthcare providers, caregivers, and patients navigating complex treatment choices for chronic disease management.
