Aging With HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa: Health & Psychosocial Perspectives

To mark the publication of Aging with HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa: Health and Psychosocial Perspectives, edited by Mark Brennan-Ing and colleagues, Hunter College’s Roosevelt House and the Brookdale Center for Healthy Aging will present a panel discussion, both in person and virtual, at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, October 12.

Because of the success of antiretroviral therapies (ART), people 50 and older now make up a majority of people with HIV in high-income countries and other places where ART is accessible. The aging of the HIV epidemic is a global trend that is also being observed in low- and middle-income countries, including countries in sub-Saharan Africa, where the greatest number of older people with HIV reside (3.7 million).

At present, however, our understanding of HIV and aging is dominated by information from the U.S. and Western Europe, where the epidemiology of HIV and the infrastructure to provide social care are markedly different than in sub-Saharan Africa. Aging with HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa (Springer, 2022) provides a unique and timely overview of growing older with HIV in this context, covering such topics as epidemiology, health and functioning, and social support, as well as policy and program implications to support those growing older with HIV.

Mark Brennan-Ing, PhD (moderator) is Director of Research and Evaluation at the Brookdale Center for Healthy Aging. Dr. Brennan-Ing’s research focuses on psychosocial issues affecting persons living with HIV and on older sexual minority and gender diverse adults. They are Past-President of the State Society on Aging of New York, from whom they received the 2017 Walter M. Beattie Award, as well as a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America, and a Fellow of Division 44 (Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity) of the American Psychological Association (APA). They currently serve on APA’s working group for the revision of Psychological Practice with Older Adults. Dr. Brennan-Ing was the lead editor of Older Adults with HIV: An In-depth Examination of an Emerging Population and HIV and Aging: Interdisciplinary Topics in Gerontology and Geriatrics (vol. 42), which received a “High Commendation” from the British Medical Association. They have authored over 100 peer-reviewed articles, chapters, and books.

Charlotte Bernard, PhD is a neuroscientist specializing in neuroepidemiology. In 2013, she obtained a PhD with honors at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Bordeaux, France. Her early publications focused on the physiopathology of cognitive and functional impairment in older subjects and adults living with HIV in France. In 2015, Dr. Bernard joined the “Infectious Diseases in Low Income Countries” team at the National Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM), Bordeaux, France, to develop a research agenda on aging with HIV. Since 2016, she has been the scientific coordinator of the mental health agenda for the West African Data Base on Antiretroviral Therapy (WADA) Collaboration, part of the International epidemiology Databases to Evaluate AIDS (IeDEA) project. During this period, she participated in developing and then coordinating the NeuroAging project, a large cohort of people living with HIV age 50 and older in West Africa whom she followed for over two years. This cohort allowed the evaluation of different aspects of aging with HIV (cognition, physical function, and frailty), as well as severe depressive symptoms.

Ruth K. Finkelstein, ScD is the Rose Dobrof Executive Director of the Brookdale Center for Healthy Aging at Hunter College as well as a professor at the School of Urban Public Health. Dr. Finkelstein has led numerous award-winning aging initiatives, including Exceeding Expectations, a digital narrative following New Yorkers over 80, and the New York Academy of Medicine’s Age-Friendly New York City, winner of the “Best Age Friendly Initiative in the World” prize. Her other recognitions include the 2016 Influencer in Aging, the 2019 Maggie Kuhn Award, and City and State’s 2020 Outstanding Women. Before transitioning to aging, Dr. Finkelstein conducted policy-relevant HIV research, publishing more than 50 papers, with particular focus on drug users and medication adherence.

Xavier Gómez-Olivé, MD, PhD is an Associate Professor and the Research Manager of the MRC/Wits Rural Public Health and Health Transition Research Unit, School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. During his more than twenty years of fieldwork experience in rural Africa Dr. Gómez-Olivé has been the principal investigator (PI) or co-investigator of numerous studies on the health and wellbeing of older populations, specially focusing on HIV, sleep disorders, non-communicable diseases, and multimorbidity. In 2006, he led the Agincourt Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health (SAGE –WHO/INDEPTH). In 2010, he coordinated a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded prevalence study on HIV and non-communicable diseases in the population 15 years and older. Since 2014 he has been the PI of the Field Core and co-PI of the HIV and multimorbidity programs for the two NIH/P01 funded studies of “Health and Aging in Africa: Longitudinal Studies of an INDEPTH Community (HAALSI).” Since 2017 Dr. Gómez-Olivé has worked as a consultant in the NIH/R01 funded study “HIV after 40 in Rural South Africa: Aging in the Context of an HIV/AIDS Epidemic.” He has authored more than 170 publications.

Jepchirchir Kiplagat, PhD is the Moi University Research Program Manager for the Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare (AMPATH) Program in Eldoret, Kenya. She coordinates all research activities within the AMPATH catchment area, manages the Kenyan functions of the AMPATH Research Program Office, and works with a North American counterpart to provide administrative and infrastructure support for partner institutions engaged in research at AMPATH. Dr. Kiplagat is a CARTA PhD Fellow and has a PhD in public health from University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. She holds a master’s degree in public health (epidemiology and disease control) from Moi University and an undergraduate degree in environmental health from the same institution. Dr. Kiplagat is an aspiring young researcher with an interest in HIV and aging, a focus she developed while working in the HIV program for more than a decade. Her desire is to improve the health outcomes of HIV infected persons with special interest in older adults.

Catherine MacPhail, PhD is an Associate Professor of Public Health in the School of Health and Society at the University of Wollongong, Australia. She has published extensively on HIV prevention in sub-Saharan Africa, where her focus is on understanding how structural issues impact young women’s HIV vulnerability and how older adults experience aging with HIV. Dr. MacPhail is also working on whether HIV prevention technologies for women might be useful for eliminating HIV in Australia, sexual behaviors of diverse communities, and domestic and family violence. Her research publications appear in high-quality peer-reviewed journals such as Social Science and Medicine and Culture, Health and Sexuality and are widely cited.

Kabo Matlho, PhD is a Research Scientist at the University of Sydney, Australia, a public health officer, and a social justice advocate, focused primarily on enhancing and advancing the management of health issues, particularly in resource-limited settings. He is particularly passionate about the role public health interventions play in the control and management of communicable and noncommunicable infections. He has a great interest in enhancing and advancing the management of diseases and infections and their impact on health systems; developing research that may influence policy analysis; and planning specific interventions and programs that aim to improve the health and wellbeing of others. Dr. Matlho’s current research focuses on the aging of the HIV epidemic in Botswana, a topic of critical importance to the government of Botswana and an aspect of HIV that has been overlooked in the global community.

Kristen E. Porter, PhD began working in the HIV field in 1994, first as a clinician, then as a nonprofit executive director of an HIV/AIDS integrative medicine clinic. After receiving her PhD in gerontology from University of Massachusetts Boston, she completed postdoctoral training at ACRIA’s Center on HIV and Aging in New York (2015-2017). During that time, she was part of an international team of collaborating researchers on HIV and aging in sub-Saharan Africa. Dr. Porter’s conference presentations on the topic include “Aging with HIV. Transgender Older Adults: Challenges, Resources, Resilience” (2019; 9th Annual LGBT Elders in an Ever Changing World, Salem State University), “Older Adults with HIV in South Africa: Experiences of Intimate Partner Violence” (2016; 68th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Gerontological Society of America, New Orleans), and “Complementary and integrative health (CIH) use in older adults with HIV” (2016; 21th International AIDS Conference, Durban, South Africa). Her research has centered on resilience among those aging with HIV, as well as sexual and gender minorities, and can be found in peer-review journals and the book Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Health and Aging (Ed. Hardacker et al., Springer, 2019).

This event will be held in person at Roosevelt House and online via Zoom.

Proof of full COVID-19 vaccination will be required for all who attend.

• RSVP to attend