Updates from 2nd Generation URBAN ARCH HIV/Alcohol P01s

This winter, the ARCHER team has continued to recruit, screen, enroll, and collect data for the center’s Pain Trial and Physical Activity (PA) Trials. In collaboration with BuildClinical, a vendor specializing in targeted online campaigns to recruit participants for clinical research studies, we have received over 3,000 potentially eligible participants to screen for eligibility for the ARCHER trials. We have phone screened 700 potentially eligible participants for the Pain Trial, and 671 potentially eligible participants for the PA Trial. In total, we currently have 276 participants enrolled and randomized: 130 in the Pain Trial and 146 in the PA Trial. Randomized participants have consented, completed the baseline interview, and completed 15 days of ecological momentary assessment (EMA) data collection. In the PA Trial, participants have also completed 15 days of Fitbit wear. In addition to collecting baseline data, we have been actively collecting 3-month and 6-month follow-up data: 107 participants in the Pain Trial have completed their 3-month interview and 3-month EMA surveys, and 111 participants in the PA Trial have completed their 3-month interview and 3-month EMA surveys. Eighty-three participants in the Pain Trial have completed their 6-month interview, of which 73 also completed the at-home blood draw which is shipped to a lab and analyzed for Phosphatidylethanol (PEth), an alcohol biomarker. Eighty-nine participants in the PA Trial have completed their 6-month interview, of which 84 completed the at-home blood draw which is shipped to a lab and analyzed for PEth.

The ARCHER team is excited to welcome a new research assistant, Neerali Vyas. Neerali is a Master of Public Health candidate at the Boston University School of Public Health with concentrations in Epidemiology and Biostatistics and Pharmaceutical Development, Delivery, and Access.

We invite any interested investigators who wish to use existing Boston ARCH data for secondary analysis to contact ARCHER PI, Dr. Stein, or Kara Magane, Senior Director of Research Operations, for additional information.

The META HIV CVD Randomized Control Trial has enrolled over 60 participants to date, with 10 participants having completed the study. The Integrated Metagenomic and Metabolomic Core Lab at the University of Louisville continues to work on processing samples. Sonam Tabor from the META HIV CVD Cohort project has submitted an abstract to the Research Society on Alcoholism’s annual meeting. This abstract is titled Alcohol Use and Microbiome-dependent Metabolites in People with and without HIV: Exploring how alcohol measurement affects variability of butyric acid, and is an update to an abstract presented at last year’s RSA meeting.

The Program Project Grant is seeking applicants for the annual Research on Alcohol and HIV satellite meeting. Please see details in the flyer below and on our website.