Along with an overall decrease in the rates of illness and death among people with HIV/AIDS, causes have also shifted since the introduction of HAART. As deaths due to opportunistic infections have fallen, the proportion of deaths due to other causes has risen. In the EuroSIDA cohort, for example, the proportion of AIDS-related deaths decreased by 23% between 1994 and 2001, while the proportion of deaths due to other causes rose by 32% ^[1].

Percentages do not tell the whole story, however, since a decrease in one cause of death necessarily raises the relative proportion attributable to other causes. In New York City, for example, the rate of AIDS-related deaths decreased by 55% between 1999 and 2004 while the rate of non-AIDS-related deaths in HIV-positive people decreased by 34%, causing the relative proportion of non-AIDS-related deaths to increase by 32%. But still, nearly 75% of all deaths among people with HIV during this period were attributable to AIDS-related causes ^[2].