Ahti’s data specialist Lene Böhnke presented the study done for the H-Team (the HIV Transmission Elimination Amsterdam) at the 11th edition of the Netherlands Conference on HIV (NCHIV) that took place on Tuesday 21 November 2017 in the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) in Amsterdam. NCHIV provides an update and platform for discussion of new insights and developments in research on the pathogenesis, epidemiology, prevention and treatment of HIV.

The idea of this particular study is to explore how Geographic Information System (GIS) analysis can be a first step in helping the H-TEAM to 1) diagnose HIV infections earlier and 2) lower the proportion of people unaware of their infection.

Ahti is developing an approach for the identification of target areas for testing and prevention practices, based on the percentage of new HIV diagnoses and the stage of infection in various neighborhoods in Amsterdam. These target areas are then related to general practitioners’ testing practices and the prevalence distribution of diabetes mellitus (DM) and cardiovascular diseases (CVD).

Preliminary findings suggest that there is an incentive for optimization and more targeted testing for GPs in target areas. The localized distribution of HIV as well as DM and CVD may also provide a rational for combined testing in a more overall health check to lower barriers for testing.

For more information: Lene Böhnke, Analyst