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Listen to key players in the San Francisco AIDS response reflect on the epidemic in the 1980s. AIDS was one of the most significant health-related events of the 20th century, and continues to be into the 21st. The human, financial and social costs are staggering, and health care delivery has undergone phenomenal changes to cope with the epidemic.

San Francisco was particularly hard hit by AIDS, and its’ community-based organizations were key early on in caring for the sick and the dying. Within the first few years of onset of the crisis, a highly effective, collaborative network of city and state agencies, hospitals, health care providers, and community-based organizations developed. A large array of services evolved to help people affected by HIV.

Considered a highly successful approach to confronting the epidemic, this complex network became known as "the San Francisco model" of AIDS care.

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