Syndemic Psychosocial Conditions among Youth Living with HIV: a Latent Class Analysis

Drug use, mental distress, and other psychosocial factors threaten HIV care for youth living with HIV (YLWH).

We aimed to identify syndemic psychosocial patterns among YLWH and examine how such patterns shape HIV outcomes.

Using baseline data from 208 YLWH enrolled in an HIV treatment adherence intervention, we performed latent class analysis on dichotomized responses to 9 psychosocial indicators (enacted HIV stigma; clinical depression and anxiety; alcohol, marijuana, and illicit drug misuse; food and housing insecurity; legal history).

We used multinomial logistic regression to assess latent class-demographic associations and the automatic Bolck-Croon-Hagenaars method to assess HIV outcomes by class.

Mean age of participants was 21 years; two thirds identified as cis male, 60% were non-Hispanic Black, and half identified as gay.

Three classes emerged: “Polydrug-Socioeconomic Syndemic” ( n  = 29; 13.9%), “Distress-Socioeconomic Syndemic” ( n  = 35, 17.1%), and “Syndemic-free” ( n  = 142, 69.0%).

Older, unemployed non-students were overrepresented in the “Polydrug-Socioeconomic Syndemic” class.

Missed/no HIV care appointments was significantly higher in the “Polydrug-Socioeconomic Syndemic” class (81.4%) relative to the “Syndemic-free” (32.8%) and “Distress-Socioeconomic Syndemic” (31.0%) classes.

HIV treatment nonadherence was significantly higher in the “Polydrug-Socioeconomic Syndemic” class (88.5%) relative to the “Syndemic-free” class (59.4%) but not the “Distress-Socioeconomic Syndemic” class (70.8%).

Lack of HIV viral load suppression was non-significantly higher in the “Polydrug-Socioeconomic Syndemic” class (29.7%) relative to the “Syndemic-free” (16.2%) and “Distress-Socioeconomic Syndemic” (15.4%) classes.

Polydrug-using, socioeconomically vulnerable YLWH are at risk for adverse HIV outcomes, warranting tailored programming integrated into extant systems of HIV care.