AIM I.The Chicago ATU will continue to expand its capacity for participating in the current Adolescent Trials Network (ATM)for HIV/AIDS Interventions and in ATN's process of developing and conducting new behavioral, community-based and hospital based, prevention, therapeutic, and vaccine trials AIM 2. The Chicago ATU's HIV-experienced, multidisciplinary clinical staff will be responsible for ATN subject recruitment, retention, and safety in conjunction with our wide array of adolescent-specific services in our well established adolescent HIV care program.
AIM 3. The Chicago ATU will enroll and monitor subjects in a central database, continuously monitor its managerial capacity for conducting research protocols and reporting on protocol implementation, protocol data collection, and submission via continuous quality assurance of these capabilities by key personnel. The Chicago Adolescent Trials Network Unit, which operates as a part of the Division of Adolescent Medicine, Dept of Pediatrics at Stroger Hospital (JSH), has an HIV positive adolescent care specific clinic at the CORE Center. JSH is the main public health safety net provider for Chicago. The CORE Center is the largest free standing clinic dedicated to the treatment and research into HIV and other infectious diseases in the United States. It operates on well-delineated principles of cultural competency, with population-specific clinics and resources dedicated to adolescents. The resources include adolescent-medicine trained physicians and nurse practitioners, with clinic space specifically designed for the population. The clinic currently has 170 youth between the ages of 13 and 24 in care. It is the largest adolescent HIV clinic in Illinois. Demographically, these youth are 85% African American, 9% Latino, 4% Caucasian and 2% Other. By gender: 65% male and 35% female. Of the 170 patients in our clinic, 86 are currently enrolled in ATN protocols. These 86 represent 111 enrollments. Our current rate of retention in studies is 93%. ATN in Chicago employs four well characterized outreach techniques to identify youth and engage them in care: a targeted, social marketing technique;drawing from 4 school based clinics which have 10,000 visits/yr;a community based outreach program;and drawing youth from our general adolescent clinic. Relevance: The ATN in Chicago will provide HIV positive and high-risk negative youth with the opportunity to participate in youth-specific, youth-relevant trials of cutting edge therapies and therapeutic strategies for HIV with the support required by their age group. It will also provide the field with opportunities to perform research on important behavioral and prevention strategies in the very high risk adolescent population.
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