Professor Virginia Berridge
BA PhD FRHistS FAcSS Hon FFPH Hon FRCP
Professor
of History and Health Policy
LSHTM
15-17 Tavistock Place
London
WC1H 9SH
United Kingdom
Fax.
Social historian with a first degree and a PhD in history, both from the University of London. I have worked in historical and non-historical settings, at the Addiction Research Unit,(National Addiction Centre) Institute of Psychiatry and the Institute of Historical Research, University of London. I was scientific secretary to the cross department and research council Drug Addiction Research Initiative. I joined the School in 1988 as Co-Director of the AIDS Social History Programme The current School History Centre of which I was first Director,has developed from that initial programme.
Centres
Research
My personal research interest is in the changes in post World War Two public health policy. Topic based research includes smoking policy;drug policy (illicit); alcohol policy; the role of the media; HIV/AIDS policy; and the relationship between evidence, incuding history, and policy. My book -Demons. Our changing attitudes to alcohol, tobacco and drugs (OUP, 2013) and Public Health. A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2016) are the most recent books published.
I was work package leader for an EU framework 7 programme ALICE-RAP on addiction and lifestyles which ended in March 2016.We researched addiction through the ages, specifically cross national differences in the terminology of addiction from the mid nineteenth century ;and the role of international agencies such as WHO and EMCDDA in establishing core concepts. A book has been published based on this research.
Hellman, Berridge Duke and Mold, Concepts of Addictive substances across time and place (OUP, 2016)
As part in the Wellcome Trust funded programme of research on 'Prisoners, Medical Care and Entitlement to Health in England and Ireland, 1850-2000' led by Professor Hilary Marland of the University of Warwick and Dr Catherine Cox of University College Dublin,a project with Dr Janet Weston as research fellow examined the recent history of HIV/AIDS in prisons in England and Ireland. A witness seminar based on this research has taken place.
I am now leading Wellcome Trust funded research on electronic cigarettes: history evidence and policy with collaborators in Australia and the US.I act as historical consultant on an AHRC funded project on AMR and history .I am editor of the Addiction Lives series of oral history interviews published by the journal Addiction and the Society for the Study of Addiction.