Missed Clinic Visits Might Explain the Racial Disparity in HIV Treatment Outcomes

HIV/AIDS is one of several medical conditions for which racial disparities have been identified both in the provision of healthcare and in clinical outcomes. Although untangling the reasons behind these findings has been daunting for all illnesses, it has been especially so for HIV/AIDS, in which so many of the variables associated with poor clinical outcomes routinely coexist.

Researchers decided to approach the issue with a statistical tool called “mediation analysis,” which allows quantitation of how strongly the relation between an independent and a dependent variable is mediated through a third variable. In this case, the variables were black race and virologic failure, and the mediator was failure to keep clinic appointments.

The resear…