Note: This study was supported by CTSI's Tenderloin Clinical Research Center (TCRC), which provided research infrastructure space and phlebotomy services. As part of CTSI's Clinical Research Services program, the TCRC is an epidemiologically and behaviorally focused research group dedicated to clinical investigation, both observational and interventional, with a focus on marginalized populations, particularly those living with HIV/AIDS. The study's co-PI, Margot Kushel, MD, is also medical director of the TCRC.
By Jeff Sheehy from UCSF.edu
UCSF researchers found that poor HIV-infected individuals living in San Francisco are significantly more likely to visit emergency rooms and to have hospital stays if they lack access to food of sufficient quality and quantity for a healthy life.
“In the prior three months, a quarter of participants in the study reported an ER visit, and just over a tenth reported a hospitalization, which shows that we are dealing with a population with high levels of illness. But the food insecure people were even sicker than the food secure, which is consistent with their experiencing higher rates of chronic diseases,” said the study’s primary investigator, Sheri Weiser, MD, assistant professor of medicine in the UCSF HIV/AIDS Division at San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center.
The findings are published online on August 22, 2012 in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
The study recruited 347 HIV-infected urban poor participants living in substandard housing in San Francisco. To determine levels of food insecurity, the participants were questioned about their anxiety and uncertainty about their food supply, whether they were able to access sufficient quality and variety of food, and their experience of insufficient food intake and the physical consequences. Just over half of the group, 56 percent, was classified as food insecure. The entire cohort of food secure and food insecure individuals was followed for two years, looking at healthcare utilization as a primary outcome.
Read more at UCSF.edu. View additional coverage in the San Francisco Chronicle.