AIDS Social History Programme

The AIDS Social History Programme collection, comprises of central government, regional government, medical and voluntary organisation material relating to the HIV/AIDS epidemic chiefly within the context of the epidemic in the United Kingdom. The central government papers provide minutes, evaluative reports, press releases, parliamentary session records along with public education campaign material on AIDS between 1985 and 1994; epidemiological and sociological reports on AIDS in the United Kingdom and comparative reports of European AIDS experience along with samples of national public health campaigns in Sweden and Switzerland; AIDS-related voluntary organisations campaign material and academic papers evaluating and surveying the organisation and history of some of these organisations including the Terrence Higgins Trust, Landmark and the Aled Richards Trust; papers relating to national and regional health authorities' strategies and initiatives to prevent HIV transmission from intravenous drug use and published material relating to charities and voluntary organisations established to prevent drug misuse and support HIV-affected individuals.

Arranged by series based on the original arrangement of the papers into subject based box-files.

• AIDS Social History Programme
• 1988-1994

Open but with some restrictions under the Data Protection Act.

The AIDS Social History Programme directed by Virginia Berridge and Philip Strong was based at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and funded by the Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust. From 1988 to 1994, the programme engaged in researching and writing the social history of AIDS in the UK, concentrating on the formation and implementation of an official AIDS policy and the role and influence of the voluntary and medical sectors on this process. The multi-disciplinary research unit used documentary analysis and informal interviews with key participants recording and analysing the cultural, legal, financial and political dimensions of the epidemic.

A documentary archive was created as part of the programme and the current records in the collection were part of this archive with the remainder having been donated to the Wellcome Library and Manuscript Collection. There were a number of publications from the programme and including: 'AIDS and Contemporary History, ed. Virginia Berridge and Philip Strong, Cambridge University Press, 1993 and 'AIDS in the UK: The Making of Policy, 1981-1994', by Virginia Berridge, Oxford University Press, 1996.