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Background: AIDS is a worrying public health issue in China and lacks timely and effective surveillance. With the diffusion and adoption of the Internet, the ‘big data’ aggregated from Internet search engines, which contain users’ information on the concern or reality of their health status, provide a new opportunity for AIDS surveillance. This paper uses search engine data to monitor and forecast AIDS in China. Methods: A machine learning method, artificial neural networks (ANNs), is used to forecast AIDS incidences and deaths. Search trend data related to AIDS from the largest Chinese search engine, Baidu.com, are collected and selected as the input variables of ANNs, and officially reported actual AIDS incidences and deaths are used as the output variable. Three criteria, the mean absolute percentage error, the root mean squared percentage error, and the index of agreement, are used to test the forecasting performance of the ANN method. Results: Based on the monthly time series data from January 2011 to June 2017, this article finds that, under the three criteria, the ANN method can lead to satisfactory forecasting of AIDS incidences and deaths, regardless of the change in the number of search queries. Conclusions: Despite the inability to self-detect HIV/AIDS through online searching, Internet-based data should be adopted as a timely, cost-effective complement to a traditional AIDS surveillance system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: More and more HIV therapeutic vaccines will enter clinical trials; however, little is known about the willingness to participate (WTP) in HIV therapeutic vaccine trials among HIV-positive individuals. Objective: To investigate the WTP in HIV therapeutic vaccine trials among Chinese HIV-infected patients. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey on HIV-positive inpatients and outpatients at Shanghai Public Health Center. A total of 447 participants were recruited into this study. Following an introduction with general information on HIV therapeutic vaccine and its potential effectiveness and side effects, each participant completed a questionnaire in a self-administered form. The questionnaires covered demographics, high-risk behaviors, clinical characteristics and willingness to participate in HIV therapeutic vaccine trial. Results: The overall willingness to participate in HIV therapeutic vaccine trials was 91.5%. Interestingly, multivariate logistic regression analyses demonstrated that the willingness was higher for those sexually infected by HIV (odds ratio [OR]: 4.36; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.53–12.41), diagnosed as HIV-1 infection for greater than 5 years (OR: 7.12, 95% CI: 1.83–27.76), and with the presence of infectious complications (OR: 2.75; 95% CI: 1.02–7.45). The primary reason for participation was to delay or reduce antiretroviral treatment (ART) and to avoid ART side effects (76.6%), and then followed by delaying disease progression (74.9%), increasing immune response to suppress opportunistic infections (57.7%) and preventing the development of drug resistance (37.1%). Reasons for unwillingness to participate mainly included concern for safety (37.0%), lack of knowledge on therapeutic vaccine (33.3%), and satisfaction with ART effectiveness (22.2%). Conclusions: The WTP in HIV therapeutic vaccine trials was high among HIV-infected Chinese patients. HIV+ subjects who acquired infection through sexual contact and who were diagnosed for more than 5 years may represent a good candidate population for enrollment in therapeutic vaccine trials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]