ABSTRACT
Concern about AIDS appeared in most European countries soon after this new disease was discovered in 1981. In Europe, as in North America, gay communities were the first to be affected and to engage in the fight against AIDS. Because of the seriousness of the epidemic and fear of discrimination, they quickly mobilized to disseminate preventive messages, take care of people with HIV/AIDS, call for treatments, and so on. The spread of the pandemic was paralleled by a wealth of research on sexual behaviour, risk practices and prevention among gay men (Pollak et al, 1994) and, later, injecting drug users (Rezza et al, 1994). The need for general population campaigns was not felt in most European countries until 1985 (Wellings and Field, 1996). Based on the idea that everyone should be concerned about HIV/AIDS prevention, these campaigns targeted the entire population due to fear that HIV might have spread widely beyond the primary 'risk' groups and a desire to avoid stigmatizing these same risk groups.
