Kaye Wellings

Early and current career

After graduation, Wellings moved to London as a public health and social scientist. For some time, Wellings worked in journalism with the journal New Society until continuing on to work with the Family Planning Association in health policy research. The next few years brought on the continuing HIV/AIDS epidemic in which Wellings monitored responses amongst the public as Senior Research Officer at the Health Education Authority (HEA). There was some conflict with methods used to handle and distribute research to the media, where Wellings and other researchers had one idea of presentation while politicians had another. “My experience there made me seek a safe haven in academia, where I could tell the story as it was, without having to suppress data or manipulate angles”, states Wellings.

Currently, Wellings is a professor of Sexual and Reproductive Health Research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). She co-led of the first three British National Surveys of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles.

Wellings has co-written several research papers describing trends and current patterns in sexual practices with opposite-sex partners among men and women aged 16–24 years in Britain, noting that more and younger people are participating in sexual practices in more diverse ways.