Research Core

项目总结（见说明）： 由于有效的抗逆转录病毒疗法，艾滋病毒感染者活到60岁和70岁现在是很常见的。然而，感染艾滋病毒的老年人，即50岁及以上的人，过早地出现了70岁以上未感染者常见的许多慢性病，如认知能力下降、痴呆、身体虚弱和其他与衰老有关的合并症。 新出现的数据表明，少数群体受到这些过早慢性病的影响不成比例，但很少有研究来描述和治疗这一人群中这些慢性衰老疾病。要消除老年艾滋病毒感染者中的种族差异，就需要对艾滋病毒感染对少数群体中与衰老有关的合并症的影响有新的认识。相对而言，可用于研究健康方面种族差异的来自特征明确的老年少数群体艾滋病毒感染者的临床数据和生物标本的来源较少。为了填补这一空白，并解决一个新兴的公共卫生问题，拉什CEDHA研究核心将招募和登记一个独特的队列的老年少数民族和非少数民族的人和没有艾滋病毒提供纵向临床数据和生物标本的来源。这些数据将被存储，编目，并通过一个存储库提供给当地和国家的研究人员，以支持高质量，尖端的临床和基础科学研究，重点是艾滋病毒和老龄化的交叉点。此外，这些数据将与从参与Rush三项正在进行的老龄化队列研究的非裔美国人和高加索背景的老年（>65岁）未感染HIV的人收集的相同数据相关联。研究核心是必不可少的两个拟议的研究项目和培训工作的拉什CEHDA消除艾滋病毒的健康差距和改善健康的老年少数民族感染艾滋病毒。

PROJECT SUMMARY (See instructions): Due to effective antiretroviral therapy, it is now common for HIV-infected persons to survive into the sixth and seventh decades of life. However, older persons with HIV, defined as those 50 years of age and older, are prematurely experiencing many of the chronic conditions commonly seen in non-infected persons over the age of 70, such as cognitive decline, dementia, physical frailty and other aging-related comorbidities. Emerging data suggest that minorities are disproportionately affected by these premature chronic conditions, yet there have been few studies to characterize and treat these chronic conditions of aging in this population. Eliminating racial disparities in older persons with HIV will require new knowledge about the effects of HIV infection on aging-related comorbidities in minorities. There are relatively few available sources of clinical data and biospecimens from well-characterized older minorities with HIV that can be used to examine racial disparities in health. To fill this gap and address a burgeoning public health problem, the Rush CEDHA Research Core will recruit and enroll a unique cohort of older minority and non-minority persons with and without HIV to provide a source of longitudinal clinical data and biologic specimens. These data will be stored, catalogued, and made available through a repository to local and national investigators to support high quality, cutting edge clinical and basic science studies that focus on the intersection of HIV and aging. Further, these data will be linked to identical data collected from older (>65 years) HIV-uninfected persons of African American and Caucasian backgrounds participating in three ongoing cohort studies of aging at Rush. The Research Core is essential for both the proposed research projects and training efforts of the Rush CEHDA to eliminate health disparities in HIV and improve the health of older minorities infected with HIV.