International Public Health Commons^™

Retention In Care Among Hiv-Infected Patients In Resource-Limited Settings: Emerging Insights And New Directions, Elvin Geng, Denis Nash, Andrew Kambugu, Yao Zhang, Paula Braitstein, Katerina Christopoulos, Winnie Muyindike, Mwebesa Bwana, Constantin Yiannoutsos, Maya Petersen, Jeff Martin

Elvin H Geng

In resource-limited settings—where a massive scale up of HIV services has occurred in the last 5 years—both understanding the extent of and improving retention in care presents special challenges. First, retention in care within the decentralizing network of services is likely higher than existing estimates that account only for retention in clinic, and therefore antiretroviral therapy services may be more effective than currently believed. Second, both magnitude and determinants of patient retention vary substantially and therefore encouraging the conduct of locally relevant epidemiology is needed to inform programmatic decisions. Third, socio-structural factors such as program characteristics, transportation, poverty, work/child care …