Interplay Between Geography and HIV Transmission Clusters in Los Angeles County

Overview

Journal Open Forum Infect Dis

Specialty Infectious Diseases

Date 2021 Jun 23

PMID 34159215

Citations 2

Authors

Britt Skaathun

Manon Ragonnet-Cronin

Kathleen Poortinga

Zhijuan Sheng

Yunyin W Hu

Joel O Wertheim

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: Clusters of HIV diagnoses in time and space and clusters of genetically linked cases can both serve as alerts for directing prevention and treatment activities. We assessed the interplay between geography and transmission across the Los Angeles County (LAC) HIV genetic transmission network.

Methods: Deidentified surveillance data reported for 8186 people with HIV residing in LAC from 2010 through 2016 were used to construct a transmission network using HIV-TRACE. We explored geographic assortativity, the tendency for people to link within the same geographic region; concordant time-space pairs, the proportion of genetically linked pairs from the same geographic region and diagnosis year; and Jaccard coefficient, the overlap between geographical and genetic clusters.

Results: Geography was assortative in the genetic transmission network but less so than either race/ethnicity or transmission risk. Only 18% of individuals were diagnosed in the same year and location as a genetically linked partner. Jaccard analysis revealed that cis-men and younger age at diagnosis had more overlap between genetic clusters and geography; the inverse association was observed for trans-women and Blacks/African Americans.

Conclusions: Within an urban setting with endemic HIV, genetic clustering may serve as a better indicator than time-space clustering to understand HIV transmission patterns and guide public health action.

Citing Articles

Prospective Evaluation of Routine Statewide Integration of Molecular Epidemiology and Contact Tracing to Disrupt Human Immunodeficiency Virus Transmission.

Kantor R, Steingrimsson J, Fulton J, Novitsky V, Howison M, Gillani F Open Forum Infect Dis. 2024; 11(10):ofae599.

PMID: 39474444 PMC: 11521326. DOI: 10.1093/ofid/ofae599.

Detection of SARS-CoV-2 infection clusters: The useful combination of spatiotemporal clustering and genomic analyses.

Choi Y, Ladoy A, De Ridder D, Jacot D, Vuilleumier S, Bertelli C Front Public Health. 2022; 10:1016169.

PMID: 36568782 PMC: 9771593. DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.1016169.

References

Vineis P . Commentary: First steps in molecular epidemiology: Lower et al. 1979. Int J Epidemiol. 2007; 36(1):20-2. DOI: 10.1093/ije/dyl291. View

Mentasti M, Afshar B, Collins S, Walker J, Harrison T, Chalker V . Rapid investigation of cases and clusters of Legionnaires' disease in England and Wales using direct molecular typing. J Med Microbiol. 2016; 65(6):484-493. DOI: 10.1099/jmm.0.000257. View

Grenfell B, Pybus O, Gog J, Wood J, Daly J, Mumford J . Unifying the epidemiological and evolutionary dynamics of pathogens. Science. 2004; 303(5656):327-32. DOI: 10.1126/science.1090727. View

Honardoost M, Rajabpour A, Vakili L . Molecular epidemiology; New but impressive. Med J Islam Repub Iran. 2018; 32:53. PMC: 6113584. DOI: 10.14196/mjiri.32.53. View

Murray M, Nardell E . Molecular epidemiology of tuberculosis: achievements and challenges to current knowledge. Bull World Health Organ. 2002; 80(6):477-82. PMC: 2567534. View

Ragonnet-Cronin M, Hu Y, Morris S, Sheng Z, Poortinga K, Wertheim J . HIV transmission networks among transgender women in Los Angeles County, CA, USA: a phylogenetic analysis of surveillance data. Lancet HIV. 2019; 6(3):e164-e172. PMC: 6887514. DOI: 10.1016/S2352-3018(18)30359-X. View

Oster A, Wertheim J, Hernandez A, Ocfemia M, Saduvala N, Hall H . Using Molecular HIV Surveillance Data to Understand Transmission Between Subpopulations in the United States. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr. 2015; 70(4):444-51. PMC: 4878401. DOI: 10.1097/QAI.0000000000000809. View

Gonsalves G, Crawford F . Dynamics of the HIV outbreak and response in Scott County, IN, USA, 2011-15: a modelling study. Lancet HIV. 2018; 5(10):e569-e577. PMC: 6192548. DOI: 10.1016/S2352-3018(18)30176-0. View

Alpren C, Dawson E, John B, Cranston K, Panneer N, Fukuda H . Opioid Use Fueling HIV Transmission in an Urban Setting: An Outbreak of HIV Infection Among People Who Inject Drugs-Massachusetts, 2015-2018. Am J Public Health. 2019; 110(1):37-44. PMC: 6893347. DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2019.305366. View

10.

Lubelchek R, Hoehnen S, Hotton A, Kincaid S, Barker D, French A . Transmission clustering among newly diagnosed HIV patients in Chicago, 2008 to 2011: using phylogenetics to expand knowledge of regional HIV transmission patterns. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr. 2014; 68(1):46-54. PMC: 4262705. DOI: 10.1097/QAI.0000000000000404. View

11.

Yirrell D, Robertson P, Goldberg D, McMenamin J, Cameron S, Leigh Brown A . Molecular investigation into outbreak of HIV in a Scottish prison. BMJ. 1997; 314(7092):1446-50. PMC: 2126709. DOI: 10.1136/bmj.314.7092.1446. View

12.

Fitzmaurice A, Linley L, Zhang C, Watson M, France A, Oster A . Novel Method for Rapid Detection of Spatiotemporal HIV Clusters Potentially Warranting Intervention. Emerg Infect Dis. 2019; 25(5):988-991. PMC: 6478209. DOI: 10.3201/eid2505.180776. View

13.

Wertheim J, Kosakovsky Pond S, Forgione L, Mehta S, Murrell B, Shah S . Social and Genetic Networks of HIV-1 Transmission in New York City. PLoS Pathog. 2017; 13(1):e1006000. PMC: 5221827. DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1006000. View

14.

Eybpoosh S, Haghdoost A, Mostafavi E, Bahrampour A, Azadmanesh K, Zolala F . Molecular epidemiology of infectious diseases. Electron Physician. 2017; 9(8):5149-5158. PMC: 5614305. DOI: 10.19082/5149. View

15.

Badal H, Stryker J, DeLuca N, Purcell D . Swipe Right: Dating Website and App Use Among Men Who Have Sex With Men. AIDS Behav. 2017; 22(4):1265-1272. DOI: 10.1007/s10461-017-1882-7. View

16.

Fauci A, Redfield R, Sigounas G, Weahkee M, Giroir B . Ending the HIV Epidemic: A Plan for the United States. JAMA. 2019; 321(9):844-845. DOI: 10.1001/jama.2019.1343. View

17.

Newman M . Mixing patterns in networks. Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2003; 67(2 Pt 2):026126. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.67.026126. View

18.

Dennis A, Hue S, Billock R, Levintow S, Sebastian J, Miller W . Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Phylodynamics to Detect and Characterize Active Transmission Clusters in North Carolina. J Infect Dis. 2019; 221(8):1321-1330. PMC: 7325798. DOI: 10.1093/infdis/jiz176. View

19.

Chudy M, Budek I, Keller-Stanislawski B, McCaustland K, Neidhold S, Robertson B . A new cluster of hepatitis A infection in hemophiliacs traced to a contaminated plasma pool. J Med Virol. 1999; 57(2):91-9. DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1096-9071(199902)57:2<91::aid-jmv1>3.0.co;2-l. View

20.

Ragonnet-Cronin M, Benbow N, Hayford C, Poortinga K, Ma F, Forgione L . Sorting by Race/Ethnicity Across HIV Genetic Transmission Networks in Three Major Metropolitan Areas in the United States. AIDS Res Hum Retroviruses. 2020; 37(10):784-792. PMC: 8573809. DOI: 10.1089/AID.2020.0145. View