Statistical Issues in AIDS Research

描述（由申请人提供）：在发现HIV病毒25年后，艾滋病的流行仍在继续，目前全球估计有3300万人感染，每年有250万新感染者。预防和治疗艾滋病毒感染的研究日益复杂，分析方面的挑战也相应变得复杂。在本申请中，我们概述了统计方法的发展计划，这些方法将直接适用于艾滋病毒/艾滋病研究领域的当前问题。特别是，我们建议开发的数据分析方法，从阶梯楔形随机试验，试验，以防止母婴传播艾滋病毒，不一致的合作伙伴的研究，试验或研究，利用两个阶段或其他复杂的抽样设计。由于艾滋病毒感染通常是无症状的，感染的时间是有界的两个测试日期，我们继续研究区间删失数据的方法，并专注于竞争风险和相关的区间删失数据相关的问题。最后，由于寻找有效的HIV疫苗提出了更大的挑战，我们建议开发新的统计方法来分析基于T细胞的疫苗以及HIV抗原-抗体相互作用研究的数据。公共卫生相关性：这项研究将开发用于艾滋病毒感染研究的统计方法。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Twenty five years after identification of the HIV virus, the AIDS epidemic continues with an estimated 33 million individuals currently infected worldwide and 2.5 million new infections each year. Research to prevent and treat HIV infection has grown increasing sophisticated and the analytic challenges have become correspondingly complex. In this application we outline plans for the development of statistical methods that will be directly applicable to current problems in the field of HIV/AIDS research. In particular, we propose to develop methods for the analysis of data from stepped wedge randomized trials, trials to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV, discordant partner studies, and trials or studies which utilize two-phase or other complex sampling designs. Since HIV infection is typically asymptomatic and the time of infection is bounded by two test dates, we continue work on methods for interval censored data and focus on issues related to competing risks and correlated interval censored data. Finally, as the search for an effective HIV vaccine presents ever greater challenges, we propose to develop novel statistical methods for analyzing data from studies of T-cell based vaccines as well as HIV antigen-antibody interactions. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This research will develop statistical methods for use in studies of HIV infection.