Mindfulness and Behavior Change to Improve Cardiovascular Health of Older People With HIV

Older people with HIV (OPWH) are disproportionately impacted by cardiovascular disease (CVD) attributable to behavioral risk factors, and chronic HIV immune dysregulation resulting inflammation. Systemic inflammation is exacerbated by psychological distress via activating the immune response and driving pro-inflammatory CVD risk behaviors. There is promising evidence to suggest that mindfulness could be an effective intervention to reduce psychological distress and support behaviorally- and inflammatory-mediated CVD risk reduction. This project aims to refine and synthesize mindfulness and behavior change content from evidence-based protocols (mindfulness-based stress reduction and diabetes prevention program) to develop and pilot test a new text message-enhanced intervention called "One Mind One Heart" (OM-OH) using feedback from semi-structured interviews with OPWH in psychological distress (N=20), and my multidisciplinary mentorship team (Aim 1). An open pilot (N=5) with exit interviews and pre-post self-report assessments, will inform the initial acceptability of OM-OH and further refine OM-OH as needed (Aim 2). Finally, a pilot randomized controlled trial (RCT; N=50) will be conducted to a.) evaluate benchmarks of feasibility and acceptability of study methods and refined OM-OH compared to enhanced usual care, and b.) investigate potential for effects on psychological distress, inflammation, and behavioral CVD risk (Aim 3). Findings will provide the foundation for an R01 application to conduct an efficacy trial of OM-OH to reduce inflammatory-mediated CVD risk among OPWH.