Translating Data into Patient-Centered Care

Two HIV researchers working in the Asia-Pacific region—Chatkamol (Bua) Pheerapanyawaranun and Thinh Toan Vu—recently joined the Fogarty-IeDEA Mentorship Program (FIMP) in order to take their data analysis skills to the next level to help improve patient-centered care.

FIMP helps emerging researchers develop skills in study design, data management, analysis, interpretation, and dissemination of research involving the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s International epidemiology Databases to Evaluate AIDS (IeDEA). amfAR’s TREAT Asia program and the Kirby Institute at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, lead the Asia-Pacific component of IeDEA and oversee FIMP in the region.

In addition to ongoing virtual mentoring, the new mentees have traveled to Sydney, Australia, for their first two-week training period with mentors at the Kirby Institute.

For her FIMP research project, Chatkamol Pheerapanyawaranun, a data specialist at the Siriraj Institute of Clinical Research in Bangkok, Thailand, is studying the clinical outcomes of children and adolescents living with HIV, comparing early versus delayed treatment initiation. With the help of mentor Azar Karimina, Ph.D., a biostatistician and coordinator of the TREAT Asia Pediatric HIV Observational Database at the Kirby Institute, she is learning how to prepare data for analysis so she can apply these techniques to her project.

Notes Pheerapanyawaranun, whose background is nursing and statistics: “While we already know that antiretroviral therapy should be started immediately after diagnosis, this research will provide practical insights that can guide healthcare professionals in delivering effective treatment. My overall aim is for my research to promote patient-centered care that will improve the quality of life among children and adolescents living with HIV.”

A doctoral student at City University of New York Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy hailing from Vietnam, Thinh Toan Vu is also researching treatment initiation. Vu focuses on scaling up integrated care models for mental health within underserved communities in his general research. For his FIMP project, he is striving to improve the timeliness of HIV treatment, examining temporal trends from HIV diagnosis to ART initiation.

“This information will inform development of targeted interventions that address these hurdles, ultimately optimizing the HIV care continuum. By facilitating faster access to lifesaving treatment, my research seeks to improve health outcomes and quality of life for people living with HIV,” says Vu. “Furthermore, the findings can empower healthcare providers and policymakers to advance data-driven public health strategies and enhance the overall well-being of people living with HIV.”

Vu is being mentored by Dhanushi Rupasinghe, Ph.D., and Awachana Jiamsakul, Ph.D., biostatisticians at the Kirby Institute working on TREAT Asia’s large HIV observational databases.

After a productive period of online mentoring with Drs. Rupasinghe and Jiamsakul, Vu appreciated the in-person training: “In Sydney, the mentoring was even better with reviewing the dataset with Dhanushi and building a better understanding of how to interpret our findings and translate this into layperson’s terms with Am [Awachana Jiamsakul]…. I really like the ‘learning by doing’ style with mentors. It is really practical for beginners like me.” On the importance of supporting emerging researchers in the field of HIV with programs like FIMP, Dr. Rupasinghe says: “While treatment for HIV has progressed over the years there is still lots of work needed in terms of stigma, co-infections, quality of life, and non-AIDS related deaths in key populations such as men who have sex with men, people who inject drugs, and others. Conducting quality research in this field raises awareness and stimulate guidelines and policy changes which support the improvement of health outcomes among people living with HIV and facilitate countries to move towards ending AIDS as a public health threat. Programs like FIMP allow emerging researchers to learn or strengthen their research skills and output robust results that raise awareness and support people living with HIV.”