ABSTRACT
The short programme of research reported in these pages and carried out in 19891 was conceived at a time when-despite mounting evidence that HIV/AIDS was an important issue for heterosexual women and men —the image of HIV/AIDS uppermost in the mind of the British public was still predominantly associated with gay men. The picture of HIV/ AIDS worldwide, even at that time, suggested otherwise, as most dramatically illustrated on the international stage by the epidemic in the African continent, which indicated that the virus was very much a sexual, medical, economic and social threat to heterosexuals-men and women alike. Meanwhile, US statistics suggested that AIDS was the leading cause of death in New York City among women from 20-40 years of age. In Britain, figures up to the end of March 1989 showed sixty-eight women with AIDS (@3 per cent of a total of 2,192) and 614 women who were HIV-positive (@7 per cent of a total of 8,638 people with HIV). Though comparatively small, these numbers both represented the potential shape of things to come in the epidemic and registered a growing set of needs perhaps substantively different from those currently being addressed in the HIV context.
