The UK Collaborative HIV Cohort Study

The UK Collaborative HIV Cohort (UK CHIC) Study investigates the clinical outcomes, response to treatment and epidemic dynamics of HIV-1 in the UK.

The UK CHIC Study is a collaboration that started in 2001 to put together data relating to clinical care and treatment of HIV. The study database contains routinely collected clinical information on HIV positive individuals aged over 16 years who have attended one of the collaborating centres for care at any time in 1996 or thereafter. Currently, the database contains more than 45,000 records of patients who have attended for care at one of a number of HIV clinics around the UK. The purpose of the study is to analyse the data to monitor the uptake and response to therapy among individuals with HIV in the UK. Other research themes include: HIV and pregnancy; HIV and hepatitis co-infection; and HIV and ageing.

The study organisation consists of a steering committee and a coordinating group, and the research themes are managed by sub-study groups. Members of the committee, sub-groups and other collaborators include clinical representatives from each of the participating HIV centres. There are also virologists, statisticians and epidemiologists with expertise in infectious disease surveillance from University College London (UCL), the Medical Research Council Clinical Trials Unit (MRC CTU), and the Health Protection Agency Centre for Infections (HPA-CfI). The study design is based on annual data collection, data cleaning and data merging processes, leading to the preparation of an annual dataset. When finished, the dataset is then used for data analyses, leading to peer-reviewed publications and other study outputs. Proposals for research analyses originate from the UK CHIC Study group and also from collaborations with other HIV observational cohort studies and projects.

The UK CHIC Study is funded by a project grant from the Medical Research Council, UK.

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