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HIV patients who have inadequate
access to nutritious food are more likely to face hospitalizations and
emergency room (ER) visits than those who have enough to eat, according to a recent
study. In San Francisco, 56 percent of HIV-positive patients who were homeless
or living in substandard housing also were food insecure, defined as regularly
unable to obtain enough healthy food.
The 347 food-insecure HIV patients
studied had about twice the ER visits or hospitalizations over a given
three-month period compared with food-secure patients, University of
California—San Francisco (UCSF) researchers found. Food insecurity had a
greater association with trips to the hospital than homelessness, drug abuse,
depression, and just about any other poverty-associated measure.
Earlier studies in the United States
and elsewhere have found food insecurity associated with missed doctors’
appointments, less suppression of HIV, and greater mortality risk.
“I feel like, if we can give
antiretroviral medications, why shouldn’t we also be able to write a
prescription for food?” said one study author, Dr. Margot Kushel, an associate
professor in the UCSF Division of Internal Medicine at San Francisco General
Hospital.
More research is needed, such as
studying whether food-insecure patients have better health outcomes with more
to eat, Kushel and colleagues said.
Only a fifth of participants in the
UCSF study took advantage of federal food assistance programs over a one-year
period, the study authors noted. They suggested either helping patients sign up
for programs or lowering the bar for assistance in order to lessen food
insecurity. About 72 percent of participants received some form of food aid.
The study, “Food Insecurity Is
Associated with Greater Acute Care Utilization Among HIV-Infected Homeless and
Marginally Housed Individuals in San Francisco,” was published ahead of the
print version of the Journal of General Internal Medicine (2012;doi:10.1007/s11606-012-2176-4).
The Friends of AIDS Foundation is
dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and
empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV
virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.
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