Deborah R. Gustafson, MS, PhD and Tracey E. Wilson, PhD are Co-Principal Investigators of the MWCCS (Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study / Women’s Interagency HIV Study Combined Cohort Study ) at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University.

The MWCCS is a collaborative research effort that aims to understand and reduce the impact of chronic health conditions—including heart, lung, blood, and sleep disorders—that affect people living with HIV. The National Institutes of Health (NIH), had supported the separate cohort studies of men and women; the MACS (Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study) was a study of gay and bisexual men, while the WIHS (Women’s Interagency HIV Study) was a study of women who had other risk factors for HIV. In 2019, the NIH funded the newly combined cohort, the MWCCS.

The STAR Program’s Women’s Interagency Health Study (WIHS) had been following women living with HIV and a comparison group of at-risk HIV uninfected women for 30 years. Data gathered here at Downstate have contributed to over 900 publications to date on a range of topics including the impact of HIV on women’s health, aging, cardiovascular health, genomics, hepatitis C, pulmonary conditions, renal issues and neurocognition.

The NIH refunded the Brooklyn study site as one of 14 centers to participate in the MWCCS. All of the former WIHS sites as well as the former MACS sites, which had been following men for over 40 years, enrolled participants into a common protocol. In addition to participants of the former MACS and WIHS, researchers  also recruited new participants with a special focus on hard-hit population groups, such as black and Hispanic men and women and residents of southern states.

The MWCCS is designed to investigate a spectrum of questions relating to the basic science, clinical science, and epidemiology of HIV infection in the US, with a focus on comorbidities among men and women living with HIV.

Major areas of investigation include: cardiovascular and pulmonary, neuropsychological, aging, cancer, psychosocial, and health disparities. Enrollment into MWCCS began in 2021 and more than 5,700 participants have been enrolled. 

More information about the MWCCS can be found at http://mwccs.org or by contacting Susan Holman, Brooklyn Site Project Director at susan.holman@downstate.edu or Susan Brockmann, the Brooklyn Site Study Coordinator, at susan.brockmann@downstate.edu.