AIDS Education and Training Centers National Coordinating Resource Center (AETC NCRC)

HIV-infected persons in the U.S. are increasingly overweight and obese with rates of weight excess similar to the general population. Weight excess in the HIV-infected population is often associated with other medical conditions such as hypertension and high cholesterol, and clinicians should consider including weight management programs as part of routine HIV care.¹   Josephine DiLena is a Registered Dietitian practicing at the François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center Clinic at The University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey. For seven years she has been caring for HIV-infected men, women and children, offering them nutritional guidance to enhance antiretroviral treatment (ART) and other therapies. Over the years, she has witnessed the changes in weight loss and gain among ART users, so we asked her to share what she believes to be most important for HIV providers to keep in mind when discussing nutrition with their patients.

In November of 2011, The François-Xavier Bagnoud Center of the School of Nursing at The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, (FXBC/UMDNJ) was awarded a cooperative agreement from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) HIV/AIDS Bureau (HAB) to develop a national training and technical assistance resource center to assist Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program grantees in understanding, developing and successfully applying to become recognized patient centered medical homes (PCMH). 

They partnered with the University of San Francisco, Department of Family and Community Medicine, Center for Excellence in Primary Care (UCSF/CEPC) to form the HIV Medical Homes Resource Center (HIV-MHRC). We asked Co-Principal Investigators Andrea Norberg, MS, RN and Carolyn Burr, EdD, RN, and Program Manager Denise Anderson-Carr, MPH, RD, to tell us a little more about their progress, vision and next steps for the HIV-MHRC in year two.