Hospitalization Rates Among People With HIV/AIDS in New York City, 2013

Hospitalizations are an important indicator of healthcare quality and access for people with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). This study assesses hospitalization rates among people with HIV/AIDS in New York City.

We performed a deterministic match between people in the New York City HIV surveillance registry alive as of 1 January 2013 and diagnosed with HIV as of 31 December 2013 and patient-level inpatient hospitalization records during 2013. Event-level data were analyzed to determine characteristics of and reasons for hospitalizations. Primary diagnoses were classified using the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification. We estimated hospitalization rates as the number of hospitalizations per 100 person-years for all causes, AIDS-defining illnesses, and non-AIDS-defining infections.

Nearly one-fifth of hospitalizations were attributed to non-AIDS-defining infections, whereas AIDS-defining illness diagnoses were infrequent (3.6% of hospitalizations). Other common causes were cardiovascular (10.9%) and substance use (9.8%). The estimated all-cause hospitalization rate was 36.7 per 100 person-years. Higher all-cause hospitalization rates were observed among females (46.8 per 100 person-years), Black and Latino/Hispanic people (41.8 and 39.5 per 100 person-years, respectively), people living in high-poverty neighborhoods (47.4 per 100 person-years), and people with a history of injection drug use (74.9 per 100 person-years). The estimated AIDS-defining illness and non-AIDS-defining infection hospitalization rates were 1.3 and 7.2 per 100 person-years, respectively.

People with HIV in New York City were frequently hospitalized. While AIDS-defining illnesses were relatively rare, non-AIDS-defining infection hospitalizations were more common. Disparities in hospitalization rates indicate a need for targeted improved primary care and comorbid disease management.