This page is an animated data visualization showing the number of Bay Area Reporter obituaries per four-week period from 1979 to 2000: rising sharply through the 1980s as the AIDS crisis hit San Francisco, peaking in early 1992, and falling after effective HIV medications became widely available. A video version of this visualization is available on YouTube.
This visualization works best on a large screen. You can view a video version below, or visit the archive on a desktop or laptop computer to explore the interactive version.