VARIATION IN COST OF AIDS RELATED TO GENDER AND TRANSMISSION RISK The Massachusetts Cost of AIDS Study (MCAS) seeks to expand available knowledge related to the cost and utilization of medical care services by people with AIDS. As the epidemic grows, accurate information about utilization is needed to provide adequate resources for care and treatment. Cost and utilization studies conducted previously are hospital based and therefore may not be representative of the true population of AIDS cases. In addition, the time and place these studies have been conducted provide limited information on differences in cost and utilization gender and transmission group. There has been a rapid growth in the incidence of AIDS cases among women and intravenous drug users in Massachusetts in 1987, and an understanding of utilization of services in these groups is essential to the planning and evaluation of services. The researchers propose to obtain cost and utilization data on all women and intravenous drug users diagnosed between January 1, 1987 and January 1, 1988. Surveillance data will be used to identify cases. A sample of male non-IVDUs will be studied to compare cost and utilization between groups. All hospitals with cases in the study cohort will be approached for IRB authorization and inpatient utilization will be collected from billing departments. Analysis of data will control for different stages of disease, socio-economic characteristics, and site of hospitalization. Multivariate methods will be developed to evaluate the effect of various confounders. Cost per patient month will be multiplied by the median months of survival to obtain the estimate of cost per patient.
