This paper addresses how the notion of 'culture' has been understood and employed by both epidemiologists and anthropologists with respect to the literature on HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. It examines the shift towards non-biomedical understandings of the epidemic. For biomedical researchers and epidemiologists, broadly speaking, 'culture' appears to compromise intervention, whilst for medical anthropologists, 'culture' is often seen as having the potential to assist intervention.