Women living with HIV are under-represented in research, limiting our understanding of co-morbid diseases.

A systematic review of studies of medical conditions in women living with HIV has found large gaps in the data, particularly for women over 50. The studies that do explore this topic showed that women living with HIV are at increased risk of acute cardiac disease, reduced bone mineral density and poorer cognitive function than women in the general population, while their gender increases the risk of kidney disease. Whether the causes of the increased risk are biological or if other factors such as socioeconomic status and ethnicity are also contributing is unclear because of a lack of evidence.

Compared to their male counterparts, women living with HIV appear to have co-morbid diseases at a younger age and worse outcomes. Despite women making up more than 50% of HIV diagnoses worldwide, women are under-represented in research. Dr Sonia Raffe and her team conducted a review of studies that examined how common cardiovascular, kidney, bone and neurocognitive disease was in women living with HIV and presented their findings at the 18th European AIDS Conference (EACS 2021).

It's always good to end the year with good news, and you can read the full article here.