Recognizing that patients' experiences of childhood and adult trauma are common and have a direct impact on their health, UCSF clinical researchers and Positive Women's Network-USA have developed and are reporting a new primary care model.
"In our clinic where we treat women with HIV, we are able to deliver lifesaving anti-HIV medications, but we still lose patients far too often. Looking back over the last ten years, only 16 percent of our patient deaths were due to HIV/AIDS. Most deaths were due to events such as depression, suicide, murder, drug overdoses and lung diseases that are directly related to adult and childhood experiences of trauma. We also realized that trauma is having a devastating impact on the health of a broad spectrum of the U.S. population, regardless of someone's HIV status. We need a new model of care that addresses this key social determinate of health," said the paper's lead author, Edward L. Machtinger, MD, director of the Women's HIV Program at UCSF.
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