Asha Improving Health and Nutrition of Indian Women With AIDS and Their Children

Rural women living with AIDS (WLA) in India continue to face profound challenges in accessing and following treatment regimens, caring for family members, and maintaining positive mental health. Furthermore, they are generally underweight and malnourished, with adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART) at levels lower than 50%. While the Indian Government's National Rural Health Mission utilizes a successful model to address the health needs of the rural population by training village women as Ashas (Accredited Social Work Activists) to enhance health of pregnant women and their infants, the focus on rural WLA needs to be significantly strengthened. U.S. and Indian collaborators recently completed an R34 pilot study which has demonstrated successful improvement in ART adherence, CD4 levels, and physical and mental health among rural Indian WLA. In total, 34 rural intervention WLA were supported by grant-trained, HIV-focused Ashas who provided assistance to WLA in decreasing barriers to ART adherence and provided protein supplementation compared to equal numbers of usual care WLA who received minimal protein supplementation. While very successful, our Asha pilot study monitored only WLA, despite the fact that many rural children are also at risk for delayed physical growth and psychomotor development. More importantly, we were not able to separate the nutritional component from the care and support component of the Asha, did not incorporate nutritional biomarkers, and were limited by only a six-month follow-up. In light of the mandate to advance both the science of nutrition and sustainability in real settings, our experienced team proposes to build on and extend our successful pilot work to meet this need, by assessing the incremental advantages of nutritional support to Asha care and support alone, and the impact of these programs on an index child (oldest between 3-8 years). In addition, we will take advantage of rural India's excellent mobile phone coverage and computer technology for both wireless data collection and data transfer. The proposed longitudinal study will use a 2x2 factorial design, specifically, 1) Asha support alone for WLA , vs. 2) Asha support for WLA + nutrition (food-based) training, vs. 3) Asha support for WLA + food supplementation, vs. 4) Asha support for WLA + nutrition training + food supplementation, to test the effects of nutrition training and/or food supplementation on primary outcomes of anthropometric parameters and immune status (CD4 levels) of the WLA at 6-, 12- and 18-month follow-up; and secondarily on ART adherence, psychological health, nutritional adequacy and lipid status of the WLA over time. Based upon reviewers' comments, among index children, we streamlined our assessments to include anthropometric parameters and psychomotor development; and among those HIV positive, immune status.

Inclusion criteria

1) WLA, 18-50 years of age; 2) receiving Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) for > three months; validated by an ART card given by the district hospital to all ART patients; 3) Blood Cell count > 100 validated by HIV card given by district hospital; 4) reporting to have a child aged 3-8 living with them; 5) not involved in Asha Life Intervention group of the first Asha study -

Exclusion criteria

WLA not between the ages of 18 to 50; not on Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) for at least three months and has a blood cell count of less than 100; reporting no children between the ages of 3 to 8; and a previous participant of the Asha Life Intervention group of the first Asha study.

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