The Spanish Flu in Belgium, 1918-1919 : a state of the art = Die Spanische Grippe in Belgien 1918-1919 : ein Stand der Technik

This article provides the first comprehensive overview of the severity and impact of the Spanish flu in Belgium (1918-1919) and thereby makes a long overdue connection with the extensive international literature on pandemics in general and Spanish flu in particular. Leveraging ego documents (diaries), municipal-level excess mortality, and individual-level cause-of-death registers, we present new evidence on the chronology and spatial distribution of Spanish flu mortality in Belgium in 1918 and 1919 as well as social and demographic characteristics of the Spanish flu deaths in the city of Antwe... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Devos, Isabelle
Bourguignon, Mélanie
Debruyne, Emmanuel
Doignon, Yoann
Eggerickx, Thierry
Greefs, Hilde
Hanus, Jord
Ronsijn, Wouter
Sanderson, Jean-Paul
Soens, Tim
Dokumenttyp: journalarticle
Erscheinungsdatum: 2021
Schlagwörter: History and Archaeology / Spanish flu / epidemic / excess mortality / historical demography / pandemic / inequality / spatial analysis / military occupation / 1918 INFLUENZA / PANDEMIC INFLUENZA / MORTALITY / ENGLAND / DISPARITIES / WALES
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-26602636
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
Powered By: BASE
Link(s) : https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/8732016

This article provides the first comprehensive overview of the severity and impact of the Spanish flu in Belgium (1918-1919) and thereby makes a long overdue connection with the extensive international literature on pandemics in general and Spanish flu in particular. Leveraging ego documents (diaries), municipal-level excess mortality, and individual-level cause-of-death registers, we present new evidence on the chronology and spatial distribution of Spanish flu mortality in Belgium in 1918 and 1919 as well as social and demographic characteristics of the Spanish flu deaths in the city of Antwerp and discuss the government measures taken in the difficult context of the German occupation. In Belgium, our analysis shows that the chronology and geography of the Spanish flu cannot be seen in isolation from the vagaries of the First World War, in terms of soldiers and evacuees both acting as likely vectors of influenza transmission as well as inflating crude death rates at the municipal level.