Evolution and possible explanations for the trends in new HIV diagnoses in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, compared to the rest of Canada, 1985–2022
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Canada aims to end the HIV epidemic as a public health threat by 2030. However, the provinces Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba reported 564 new HIV diagnoses in 2021 and over 600 in 2022. This study describes changes in HIV epidemiology in these three provinces compared to the rest of Canada between 1985 and 2022. Methods: This was an ecological study that used data from publicly available HIV reports published by the Governments of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Canada from the first reported HIV diagnoses to the latest available information. Variables of interest included number of HIV diagnoses per year (new, introduced), advanced HIV disease, proportion of diagnoses by sex (female/male), ethnicity, age, self-reported HIV mode of transmission, and mortality. We report the HIV incidence, advanced HIV disease, and mortality over time by province, and by sex, ethnicity, age, and mode of HIV transmission when data are available. Results: Canadian HIV incidence decreased over time, while new HIV diagnoses in Manitoba and Saskatchewan increased to the highest ever recorded. In Saskatchewan and Manitoba, the male-to-female ratio is 1:1, while in Alberta and Canada, it is 2:1. Indigenous people have been overrepresented in Saskatchewan and Manitoba diagnoses since 2006 and 2016, respectively. The most common modes of HIV transmission are injection drug use and heterosexual sex in Saskatchewan and Manitoba for several years, while "out-of-country" is the most common category in Alberta. The advanced HIV disease and mortality statistics have decreased over time in Canada and the three provinces. Conclusion: HIV incidence in Canada has slowly decreased; however, Manitoba and Saskatchewan have shown unprecedented increases in HIV incidence. The current epidemiology requires immediate public health action from local, provincial, and federal governments, considering that Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba contribute to about 40% of all new HIV diagnoses in Canada.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.004 | 0.007 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".