The Reaching for Excellence in Adolescent Care and Health (REACH) Project was an observational study designed to better understand HIV disease progression and co-morbidity in adolescents, with the ultimate goal of improving the health care management of adolescents living with HIV. The study sample includes both HIV infected adolescents and high-risk HIV uninfected adolescents, between the ages of 12 through 18 years, who were recruited from clinics throughout the United States during the late 1990s. The study utilized five primary methods of data collection: 1) direct face-to-face interview, 2) Audio Computer-Assisted Self-Administered Interview (ACASI), 3) medical record abstraction, 4) physical examinations, and 5) laboratory examinations. REACH includes data on 578 adolescents who were observed for an average of one and a half years, providing unique opportunities to study extensive biomedical, behavioral and psychosocial outcomes. Examples of topics covered in this data set include:

REACH participant data are available as standard and sensitive data files. Standard data files primarily include information collected via subject data collection forms, in addition to the majority of the laboratory results. Sensitive data files include confidential subject information such as urine drug screen results, the Health Behavior Questionnaire, the ACASI, and derived variables for such data. Separate ID numbers for the standard and sensitive data files were assigned and data from these files cannot be linked without access to the linkage file decoding data or the acquisition of the merged sensitive dataset files from Sociometrics. Additionally, biologic specimens collected by the study are available for analysis.

Investigators who are interested in utilizing REACH sensitive data files and/or specimens are required to submit a research proposal and IRB correspondence to Sociometrics that approves the proposal with no concerns about identifiable information or conflicts with the data.