Assessing HIV care and unmet need: eight data bases and a bit of perseverance.

This study integrated healthcare information from multiple data sources to measure access to HIV primary care in the St. Louis, Missouri area between 1998-2002. We describe the process of creating the collective database and the degree to which each dataset contributed to the calculation of global variables such as evidence of HIV primary care. Descriptive analyses were used to measure evidence of HIV primary among the included data sources. This study was the first of its kind to study HIV primary healthcare access over a period of five years with integrated databases. Findings reinforce the importance of HIV laboratory values as indicators of access to HIV primary healthcare, particularly in the absence of other health data sets. Limitations to the study were posed by data availability and integration of data sources with varying purposes and sophistication.