Louisiana, with a population of just over 4 million people, ranked 9th highest in state AIDS case rates and 12th in AIDS cases reported in 1997. There are documented 16,112 cases of HIV and of those, 10,320 have Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). As of December 1997, more than 50 percent of the HIV/AIDS cases have been documented in the New Orleans metropolitan statistical area and 18 percent of the cases have been documented in the metro Baton Rouge statistical area. These statistics rank New Orleans 11th highest among large cities in the nation. Baton Rouge metro area ranks 19th in the nation. To address the local HIV epidemic, academic and lay communities have successfully obtained funding support for a variety of basic science and clinical research programs, including the Louisiana Community AIDS Research Program (LaCARP). LaCARP's goals in submitting this application are: (1) to continue contributing to the CPCRA scientific agenda by active participation in CPCRA scientific activities, including serving on national committees, concept and protocol teams; (2) to continue to offer a variety of adult HIV clinical research trials; (3) to continue to contribute high-quality data collected in concordance with regulatory requirements; and (4) to continue serving as an educational resource regarding HIV clinical trials and their results to local medical and lay communities. To achieve these goals, LaCARP specifically aims to: (1) administer this grant from a centralized office and subcontract with successfully performing HIV primary care sites in New Orleans and Baton Rouge; (2) maintain a scientific advisory board to assist LaCARP in evaluating research concepts of high priority; (3) maintain a strong community advisory board to ensure those infected and affected by HIV have appropriate input into the national and local design and implementation of research trials; and (4) enroll sufficient numbers and types of study volunteers to answer scientifically important and clinically relevant research questions. LaCARP has access to more than 4,000 patients among the 7 clinical sites and plans to enroll 180-225 patients a year, with special emphases on strategy trials such as FIRST, PIP and the observational studies of Metabolic Complications and Long-Term Follow-up.
