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Research on AIDS prevention and AIDS policy have been an important part of the work of the Public Health Research Group at the Social Science Research Centre for twenty years now.

Surveys of the preventive behaviour of homosexual men were carried out in 1991, 1993, 1996, 1999; 2003; and 2007 for the Federal Centre for Health Education (BZgA) by Dr. Michael Bochow (2003 together with Dr. Michael Wright). Similar surveys were conducted in 1987 and 1988 for the Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe. These surveys gathered data by placing a four-page questionnaire in the most important monthly magazines for homosexual men in Germany. In 2003 and 2007 the questionnaire was also administered online.

Sub-group analysis of data from the project “Time stability in reducing the risk of HIV transmission among homosexual men in Germany” (Zeitstabilität in der Risikominderung der HIV-Übertragung unter homosexuellen Männern in Deutschland, 8th follow-up survey Gay men and AIDS [GMA] 2007) on the topics sexual behaviour (number of partners, condom use), drug use, taking special account of different age groups, birth cohorts, social strata, HIV-testing behaviour, sexually transmitted deseases
 

MULTILINKS is an EU-FP7 project coordinated by Prof. Pearl Dykstra, Department of Sociology, Erasmus University Rotterdam. It started in March 2008. It aims at investigating how changing social contexts, from macro-societal to micro-interpersonal, affect social integration, well-being and intergenerational solidarity across different European nations. Its approach builds from three key premises. First, ageing affects all age groups: the young, the middle-aged, and the old. Second, there are critical interdependencies between family generations and between men and women. Third, different analytical levels must be distinguished: the individual, dyad (parent-child, partners), family, region, historical generation, and country.

This strand of research is developed in conjunction with a research group within the European network of excellence ¬EQUALSOC. An edited book as well as chapters for various books and journal articles have been already published. At present the professor-ship is involved in the study of the impact of dependency in old age on social inequalities in the children’s generation and in work-caring conciliation problems arising in the second half of working life when there are caring demands from the older generation.
Together with other members of EQUALSOC, the group has also produced an
> inventory of comparative data sources for the study of intergenerational relations.

This project is part of a larger project on Working and Caring in Europe, funded by the French Ministry of Labour (MIRE) and coordinated by the Ecole nationale de la santé publique (ENSP) at Rennes. The aim is to explore how middle aged women in different working situations and their families deal with the demands of care coming from their frail elderly parents and parents in law in European countries having different institutional frameworks with regard to caring services for the frail elderly. The WZB
research group is responsible for the German case and has so far published a WZB discussion paper SP I 2009-401.