PHACS – Pediatric HIV/AIDS Cohort Study
The Pediatric HIV/AIDS Cohort Study (PHACS) network conducts longitudinal cohort studies investigating the long-term effects of HIV and antiretroviral (ARV) medications in infants, children, adolescents, and young adults (YA) living with perinatal HIV (PHIV) or born HIV-negative to mothers living with HIV. The PHACS network follows participants at 21 clinical sites across the U.S., including Puerto Rico. It is primarily funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), with co-funding from NIDCR, NIAID, NINDS, NIDCD, NIMH, NIDA, NCI, NIAAA, NHLBI, and the Office of the Director.
PHACS is based at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH) and is led by Multiple Principal Investigators (mPIs): Dr. Paige Williams and Dr. Sonia Hernandez-Diaz at HSPH, and Dr. Ellen Chadwick and Dr. Jennifer Jao at Northwestern University.
PHACS has four Support Cores led by HSPH staff which provide synergistic services to the research projects and administration of the grant:
- The Data Resources Core (DRC) provides operations, design, methodologic, and analytic expertise and support to the development of the PHACS research protocols.
- The Scientific Administrative Core (SAC) provides oversight, support, and guidance to the Scientific Leadership Committee (SLC), which includes experts in various scientific disciplines.
- The Health Education and Community Core (HECC) supports the engagement of participants in all stages of the research process, and supports communication of research findings.
- The Epidemiological and Statistical Methods Core (ESC) supports rigorous, specialized, and appropriate epidemiological and statistical methods in our research.
With remarkable improvements in the treatment of children born with HIV, the young adults currently living with perinatally-acquired HIV in the US represent the first cohort to survive through adolescence and into adulthood. Similarly, advances in treatment of women living with HIV during pregnancy have dramatically decreased HIV transmission, but these have resulted in a new generation of children living with HIV exposure but born without HIV. The studies that PHACS supports investigate the impact of HIV infection and its treatment on the long-term survival and outcomes in children and young adults born to women living with HIV. The research of the PHACS network seeks to improve both quality of life and health care for women, children, and YA affected by HIV all over the world.
See the PHACS network website for more detail: www.phacsstudy.org
