Stronger together: building interdisciplinary partnerships to identify and support best practices for long-term care for people living with HIV in British Columbia

In the past two decades, with the arrival of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) and a robust Treatment as Prevention (TASP) strategy, a demographic shift has been observed in people living with HIV (PLHIV), with individuals over 50 making up more than half of PLHIV in British Columbia (BC). Although this represents positive strides in the fight against HIV, there is a great need for services to support those affected, and to ensure that quality of life is improved and maintained, with respect to the documented physiological, psychosocial and age-related comorbidities of aging with HIV. This transformation in the demographic of PLHIV has occurred alongside a change in strategic priorities and funding allocation for healthcare across Canada, which has altered the nature and extent of care available to PLHIV. Particularly, eligibility criteria for community and continuing care programs have evolved, potentially creating gaps in support for older PLHIV living at home or requiring residential care. This proposal represents the first step in a multi-phased program of research, in which we aim to address the realities of aging with HIV and how individuals and communities in urban and rural/remote locations in BC meet health needs. We propose to conduct an environmental scan to characterize service availability for aging PLHIV, host a community roundtable on the topic of aging with HIV to report findings back to participating AIDS Service Organizations, and use the findings of this series of activities to guide the development of an Operating Grant to further pursue lines of inquiry that emerge from this work. The overall aim of this program of research is to evaluate the availability of community and home care health services, with the purpose of informing policy and programming recommendations to improve health and quality of life of people aging with HIV.