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© 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

Molecular HIV cluster data can guide public health responses towards ending the HIV epidemic. Currently, real-time data integration, analysis, and interpretation are challenging, leading to a delayed public health response. We present a comprehensive methodology for addressing these challenges through data integration, analysis, and reporting. We integrated heterogeneous data sources across systems and developed an open-source, automatic bioinformatics pipeline that provides molecular HIV cluster data to inform public health responses to new statewide HIV-1 diagnoses, overcoming data management, computational, and analytical challenges. We demonstrate implementation of this pipeline in a statewide HIV epidemic and use it to compare the impact of specific phylogenetic and distance-only methods and datasets on molecular HIV cluster analyses. The pipeline was applied to 18 monthly datasets generated between January 2020 and June 2022 in Rhode Island, USA, that provide statewide molecular HIV data to support routine public health case management by a multi-disciplinary team. The resulting cluster analyses and near-real-time reporting guided public health actions in 37 phylogenetically clustered cases out of 57 new HIV-1 diagnoses. Of the 37, only 21 (57%) clustered by distance-only methods. Through a unique academic-public health partnership, an automated open-source pipeline was developed and applied to prospective, routine analysis of statewide molecular HIV data in near-real-time. This collaboration informed public health actions to optimize disruption of HIV transmission.

Details

Title
An Automated Bioinformatics Pipeline Informing Near-Real-Time Public Health Responses to New HIV Diagnoses in a Statewide HIV Epidemic
Author
Howison, Mark 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Gillani, Fizza S 2 ; Novitsky, Vlad 2 ; Steingrimsson, Jon A 3 ; Fulton, John 4 ; Bertrand, Thomas 5 ; Howe, Katharine 5 ; Civitarese, Anna 5 ; Bhattarai, Lila 5 ; MacAskill, Meghan 5 ; Ronquillo, Guillermo 5 ; Hague, Joel 2 ; Dunn, Casey W 6   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Bandy, Utpala 5 ; Hogan, Joseph W 3 ; Kantor, Rami 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo 

 Research Improving People’s Lives, Providence, RI 02903, USA 
 Department of Medicine, Brown University, Providence, RI 02906, USA 
 Department of Biostatistics, Brown University School of Public Health, Providence, RI 02903, USA 
 Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI 02903, USA 
 Rhode Island Department of Health, Providence, RI 02908, USA 
 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA 
First page
737
Publication year
2023
Publication date
2023
Publisher
MDPI AG
e-ISSN
19994915
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2791745318
Copyright
© 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.