Best practices, guideline development and "rapid advice"

Increasingly, US and international policy makers have requested our Group's assistance in developing analyses of HIV/AIDS issues of particular concern to them. Here are a few examples of such activities.

In 2001, the United States Office of Minority Health asked us to conduct a series of systematic reviews of interventions addressing HIV prevention among minority populations in the United States. The findings were disseminated to health departments and community-based organizations for use in program development.

In 2002, the World Health Organization (WHO) asked us to prepare a series of 7 systematic reviews of antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) in combination therapy for treating HIV/AIDS, outlining which drugs should be used in combination therapy. WHO added the drugs to the "WHO Model List of Essential Medicines."

In late 2003, we were asked by the Milbank Memorial Fund and the Council on Foreign Relations to prepare an assessment of the evidence supporting various intervention strategies for HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care, with a particular focus on resource-constrained settings. The assessment was used for testimony to high-level State Department personnel in preparation for the Institute of Medicine’s consensus committee report titled “Scaling Up Treatment for the Global AIDS Pandemic: Challenges and Opportunities.”

Working with the State of California Department of Health Services (DHS), in conjunction with the California HIV/AIDS Research Program (CHRP), we prepared systematic reviews of behavioral prevention in heterosexual African-Americans, and another for prevention in men who have sex with men (MSM) of color. This was for inclusion in CHRP's "California Collaborations in HIV Prevention Research Dissemination Project." In 2008, we completed another systematic review for this series, this time on behavioral prevention interventions for women of color in the United States.

In early 2006, WHO asked us to review the evidence for essential care and prevention interventions for people living with HIV/AIDS. With colleagues from WHO and the Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health, we convened a Consensus Conference in Montreux that developed new WHO guidelines for these interventions.

With the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the World Health Organization, and the Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health, we conducted a systematic review of the evidence for linkages between sexual and reproductive health and HIV services.

Most recently (late 2009), we provided "rapid advice" to WHO to inform the development of a range of new Guidelines. These have included more than a dozen systematic reviews relevant to children with HIV infection; adult and adolecescent antiretroviral therapy; and prevention of mother-to-child HIV infection.