Disparities in the Quality of Cardiovascular Care Between HIV‐Infected Versus HIV‐Uninfected Adults in the United States: A Cross‐Sectional Study

Background Cardiovascular disease is emerging as a major cause of morbidity and mortality among patients with HIV. We compared use of national guideline‐recommended cardiovascular care during office visits among HIV‐infected versus HIV‐uninfected adults. Methods and Results We analyzed data from a nationally representative sample of HIV‐infected and HIV‐uninfected patients aged 40 to 79 years in the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey/National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, 2006 to 2013. The outcome was provision of guideline‐recommended cardiovascular care. Logistic regressions with propensity score weighting adjusted for clinical and demographic factors. We identified 1631 visits by HIV‐infected patients and 226 862 visits by HIV‐uninfected patients with cardiovascular risk factors, representing ≈2.2 million and 602 million visits per year in the United States, respectively. The proportion of visits by HIV‐infected versus HIV‐uninfected adults with aspirin/antiplatelet therapy when patients met guideline‐recommended criteria for primary prevention or had cardiovascular disease was 5.1% versus 13.8% (P=0.03); the proportion of visits with statin therapy when patients had diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular disease, or dyslipidemia was 23.6% versus 35.8% (P