# Assessing the Impact of COVID-19-Related Distancing and Clinical Service Disruptions on the HIV Epidemic in the United States

> **NIH NIH F31** · EMORY UNIVERSITY · 2022 · $46,753

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
With over 1.2 million Americans currently living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), and nearly 40,000
new infections every year, HIV remains a major public health challenge in the United States. HIV risk is not
uniform across the US population: approximately 70% of infections occur among gay, bisexual, and other men
who have sex with men (MSM), and certain racial/ethnic groups experience higher HIV risk. HIV transmission
remains high despite recent advancements in biomedical prevention and treatment partly because of
disparities in access to these measures. Economic and social disruptions from the COVID-19 global pandemic
have exacerbated these disparities and created new challenges in HIV control, disrupting access to HIV
prevention and clinical care services and prompting major behavioral changes (including reductions in sexual
activity, “sexual distancing”). These changes may dramatically impact the trajectory of the US HIV epidemic.
There have been reports of decreased HIV diagnoses during the pandemic, but these estimates may be an
artifact of reduced screening rather than decreased transmission and are therefore unreliable. Enumerating
HIV transmission is critical for the provision of HIV prevention interventions; a better understanding of how the
COVID-19 pandemic has affected and will continue to affect HIV dynamics of US MSM is urgently required.
Increased transmission due to service disruptions may be offset by sexual distancing, but this depends on the
temporal patterns and demographic distribution of these changes. Transmission may also be mitigated by
interventions that address clinical disruptions (e.g., telehealth and other home-based HIV medical services).
Our overarching hypotheses are: 1) COVID-19-related changes in sexual behavior and service disruptions
have varied among US MSM in magnitude and timing by demographic factors, 2) these changes will alter HIV
incidence across the pandemic era, and 3) targeted home-based HIV medical care retention interventions can
curtail the impact of clinical care disruptions on HIV transmission. In AIM 1, we will triangulate data from two
independent longitudinal studies of US MSM to describe the temporal patterns and demographic distribution of
sexual distancing and HIV service disruptions. In AIM 2, we will use a network-based HIV transmission model
to disentangle changes in HIV transmission versus screening to estimate HIV incidence among US MSM
during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. In AIM 3, we will use a transmission model to determine the
epidemiologic impact of targeted home-based HIV care retention interventions in a high burden jurisdiction.
The findings of this project will both inform HIV surveillance efforts and guide the development of targeted HIV
prevention programs. With this research and training program, the applicant will gain a multidisciplinary skill set
combining epidemiologic methods, network science, and infectious disease modeling, while advanci...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10484111
- **Project number:** 1F31MH130274-01
- **Recipient organization:** EMORY UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Laura M Mann
- **Activity code:** F31 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $46,753
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2022-05-01 → 2024-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10484111

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10484111, Assessing the Impact of COVID-19-Related Distancing and Clinical Service Disruptions on the HIV Epidemic in the United States (1F31MH130274-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10484111. Licensed CC0.

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