About Virginia

Virginia Berridge is Professor of History at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London. She is Director of the Centre for History in Public Health, a group of historians working on twentieth century health policy. The Centre is funded by awards from the Wellcome Trust.

Her research interests range from smoking, illicit drugs, alcohol and HIV/AIDS, to the recent history of public health and the relationship between evidence and policy.

Her publications include Opium and the People: Opiate use and drug control policy in nineteenth and early twentieth century England. (Free Association Books, London, 1999, second edition); AIDS in the UK: The Making of Policy 1981-1994 (Oxford University Press, 1996); Poor Health, Social inequality before and after the Black report (London, Frank Cass, 2002 and Marketing Health. Smoking and the discourse of public health in Britain,1945-2000. (Oxford University Press, 2007).Her latest book is Demons. Our changing attitudes to alcohol, tobacco and drugs (OUP,2013)

Virginia has been one of the managers of the History and Policy initiative and a Trustee of Alcohol Research UK. She edits the history series in the journal Addiction.