Epidemics and inequalities in Belgium from the plague to COVID-19: what can we learn about societal resilience? (EPIBEL) (EPIBEL)

The overarching goal of the EPIBEL-project team is to map and explain inequalities in the impact of epidemic outbreaks. COVID-19 demonstrated that some people are more likely to suffer in their health and their material well being than others. However, as the pandemic is still unfolding, our understanding of these inequalities is still limited. What is more, we ignore how this social bias in impact will eventually affect societal resilience – the way societies are able to absorb the shock and adapt to prevent similar shocks in the future. However, COVID-19 is not the first epidemic outbreak which hit the world. Hence, EPIBEL systematically compares COVID-19 with five previous epidemic outbreaks: the 1918/19 'Spanish' Flu, the 1866 cholera epidemic, dysentery in 1692/93 and plague in 1438/39 and 1556/59. All of these were perceived by contemporaries as major outbreaks. As a result they are well documented and resulted in the formulation of epidemic policies with lasting impact. The central objective of the EPIBEL-project is to analyse the role of socio-demographic and economic inequalities during and after previous epidemic outbreaks in the past. The researcher on this project will investigate the capacity of social care and welfare systems to mitigate the effects of past epidemic outbreaks on the poor and least privileged groups in society. Combining statistical data on poverty with archival research on local providers of social care, EPIBEL will assess A) the organisation of welfare provisioning; B) the volume and nature of support; C) the number and societal profile of the recipients and D) the public debate on welfare policies related to epidemic outbreaks.

Keywords:HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL RESILIENCE, SOCIAL HISTORY

Disciplines:Socio-economic history

Project type:Collaboration project