When ACRIA was formed in 1991, it was in large part as a response to the slow progress of government and academic AIDS research.  Since then, ACRIA has grown in both size and stature, and today conducts one of the most active community-based HIV/AIDS clinical research programs in the country.  Many of the new antiretrovirals approved by the FDA have been studied in clinical trials at ACRIA.  In addition to providing vital scientific information about the safety and efficacy of new treatments, clinical trials give their participants the benefit of new drugs before they receive official FDA approval, often literally saving their lives.  We continually study new anti-HIV treatments, therapies for AIDS-related complications, and treatments for the side effects of HIV medications.

Our Research Department also conducts behavioral studies of people infected and affected by HIV and those at risk.  This research helps identify emerging trends and the social and service needs of people with the virus, with important implications for both prevention and treatment.

ACRIA?s Treatment Education Department conducts group workshops and provides one-on-one counseling to people with HIV, arming them with the knowledge to take charge of their own healthcare and enabling them to make informed decisions about their treatment options.  Our workshops cover a variety of specific topics of importance to people with HIV?how the virus works in their bodies, how to deal with drug side effects, issues unique to HIV-positive women, the importance of sticking to a drug regimen, for example?and contain scientifically accurate and up-to-date information.

ACRIA, of course, can?t do it all alone.  For that reason we provide training and technical assistance to the staff of other organizations that serve HIV-positive individuals.  Ranging from two-hour, topic-specific workshops to intensive four-day courses, these services give participants important information about HIV and its treatment options and train them in the skills needed to integrate treatment education into the services they provide.  Our four-day technical assistance programs are offered in New York City and regionally across the country.

Finally, to reach the broadest possible audience of people who need treatment information, we publish the treatment quarterly ACRIA Update and topic-specific booklets?five so far?that are distributed free across the United States and abroad.

What have you accomplished?

Since its founding, ACRIA has been instrumental in the development of ten FDA-approved lifesaving HIV drugs, benefiting literally tens of thousands of people.

The most recently approved of the drugs tested by ACRIA, tipranavir, exemplifies some of the many ways that our clinical trials help real people with HIV and AIDS:  ACRIA began studying this promising new drug in clinical trials in 2003.  The people at whom tipranavir was aimed, and who took part in the clinical trials, had already used other AIDS drugs but either were intolerant of existing medications or had become resistant to them.  Available drug therapies had failed them, and they were running out of options.  Participation in the tipranavir clinical trials quite literally gave them a chance to stay alive. 

The initial clinical trials bore out tipranavir?s early promise, and in 2004 ACRIA became what is called an open-label safety site for the drug.  This meant that we could make the drug available to anyone who qualified, even though it had not yet been approved by the FDA.  The manufacturer supplied the drug and ACRIA the services, both free of charge, extending its lifesaving benefits beyond the initial scope of the clinical trials.

Finally, in Spring 2005, tipranavir was approved by the FDA, making it available to the more than 1 million Americans living with HIV and AIDS.

Another case in point is our behavioral research on one of the fastest growing HIV populations in the country?individuals who have reached their 50^th birthdays.  Since the beginning of the epidemic, HIV prevention, treatment, and social services programs have largely overlooked individuals aged 50 and over.  Only now are older adults emerging as a recognized segment of the HIV-positive population, one in which the illness is complicated by a variety of age-related medical and psychosocial factors.

ACRIA?s research on HIV and older adults dates to 2001, and we remain one of only a handful of organizations in the United States working on issues specific to this older HIV-positive population.  Our first studies?on social support networks and cognitive function?have been published in the journals Aging & Mental Health and Research on Aging and were presented at the Fifteenth International AIDS Conference in Bangkok.

The findings of ACRIA?s initial studies, coupled with the almost total lack of data on issues relating to older HIV-positive individuals, pointed to the need for more comprehensive research.  To that end, ACRIA researchers have launched the Research on Older Adults (ROAH) initiative.  With a cohort of 1,000 HIV-positive people over 50 in New York City, ROAH is the largest single study of this population undertaken to date and is unique in the kinds of questions it asks, for the first time probing in depth the sexual and drug-taking risk behaviors of older people with HIV, as well as gathering data on medical and psychosocial issues.

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