Isabelle Devos
Biographic Data
| ID | 271099 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Isabelle Devos |
| GIVEN NAMES | Isabelle |
| FAMILY NAME | Devos |
| SIGNATURE | DEVOS I |
| AFFILIATIONS | Ghent University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6111-711X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 21 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
A Decomposition Approach to Cause-Specific Mortality in the Port City of Antwerp in the Early 20th Century
Building on Janssens' work, which highlights the distinct epidemiological profiles of port cities, this study explores cause-specific mortality in early 20th-century Antwerp, Belgium's largest city and a major international port. Using Arriaga's decomposition method, we compare life expectancy and mortality by cause of death in Antwerp with those in Brussels, Ghent, and Liège, the country's next three largest cities. Despite its status as a bustl…
Navigeren door de complexiteit van de coronapandemie
Navigating the complexities of the Covid-19 pandemic In this contribution, we discuss from the perspective of historical demography how the corona pandemic has led to new research themes and different approaches to existing themes. Examples include the effect of pandemics on social inequalities in mortality and fertility in the short as well as the long run. The corona pandemic has given historical-demographic research additional legitimacy as re…
The geography of tuberculosis mortality in Belgium between 1889 and 1991
Tuberculosis (TB) was the leading cause of death in Western countries during the 18th and 19th centuries, rising with industrialization and urbanization, then declining in the 20th century due to improved living conditions, public health measures, and medical advances. While the epidemiology of TB in Belgium has been well described, the spatial and temporal features are less well known. In this article, we examine TB mortality data from “Le Mouve…
Where did people die from cardiovascular disease? Spatial inequalities in cardiovascular mortality in Belgium between 1890 and 2011
In the early 20th century, mortality due to cardiovascular disease (CVD) was relatively uncommon. Most Western countries only faced a huge increase in cardiovascular deaths during the second part of the 20th century only [Grimmeau et al., 2015]. In Belgium, the trajectory of CVD fatalities unfolded in this manner: from 4% of all deaths in 1850 to 9% in 1910, 29% in 1950 and 37% in 1995, followed by a decline from 36% in 2000 to 25% in 2019 [Devos…
Tracing the tumors
This article delves into the challenges and methodologies involved in mapping cancer trends across Belgium during the twentieth century. Disease mapping, pioneered by John Snow and Alfred Haviland, has been instrumental in understanding spatial disease patterns. However, comprehensive spatial cancer studies for Belgium are notably scarce before the 1960s, complicating comparisons over time. This research addresses the gap by mapping cancer mortal…
The Limits and Possibilities of Cause of Death Categorisation for Understanding Late Nineteenth Century Mortality
status: Published
Beyond Narratives of Conflict. Modern Medicine, Reproduction and Catholicism in Contemporary Historiography
Over the last two decades, the topic of Western biomedicine and religion has gained firm ground among historians. While taking distance from both confessional approaches and interpretations of the past that were implicitly informed by a narrative of conflict between medicine and religion, historians have recently integrated phenomena of separate coexistence and examples of mutual influence and collaboration in their work. In this article, we disc…
STREAM (Spatiotemporal Research Infrastructure for Early Modern Brabant and Flanders)
This article presents the technical characteristics of the Belgian STREAM-project (2015–2019). The goal of STREAM is to facilitate and innovate historical research into local and regional processes through the development of a spatiotemporal infrastructure for early modern Brabant and Flanders, two of the most urbanized and developed areas of pre-industrial Europe. To this end, STREAM systematically collects a range of key data from a diversity o…
Spatial disparities at death. Age-, sex- and disease-specific mortality in the districts of Belgium at the beginning of the twentieth century
At the beginning of the twentieth century, life expectancy at birth was much lower in Flanders, the northern part of Belgium, than in Wallonia, the southern part of the country. In the literature, this excess mortality is mainly attributed to high levels of infant mortality caused by bad feeding practices and low-quality drinking water. The regional variability of mortality risks at other ages during this period has received less attention. In th…
Much Ado about Nothing? Reconsidering the Smallpox Effect. Height in the Nineteenth-Century Town of Thielt, Belgium
Anthropometric evidence such as height has been considered a major indicator of the social and economic well-being of past societies. To understand differences in attained height, the role of several determinants has been widely discussed. Since the 1990s, the impact of disease has shown to be a promising topic. In particular, research on the effect of smallpox on the height of the population in nineteenth-century England has triggered heated deb…
Décès de jure , décès de facto
Le non-enregistrement de la migration temporaire peut être à l'origine d'écarts importants entre les taux de mortalité selon qu'ils sont calculés sur la base de la résidence légale, effective ou habituelle des personnes décédées. Les taux les plus indiqués sont, selon nous, ceux obtenus à partir de la résidence habituelle. Les résidents habituels sont en effet les plus exposés aux risques attachés à une ville donnée. Les recensements, les statist…
Tussen familie en instelling? Een analyse van de huishoudtrajecten van doven in Oost-Vlaanderen, 1970-1950
Disability onderzoekers veronderstellen een sociaal segregatieproces voor personen met een beperking in de negentiende eeuw. Voorheen zouden personen met een beperking tot de verantwoordelijkheid hebben behoord van het gezin. Naarmate traditionele familiebanden aan kracht verloren en individualisme sterker werd in de negentiende eeuw, werden ze steeds meer beschouwd als een kwetsbare groep die diende opgevangen te worden door formele instellingen…
Death at work? Mortality and industrial employment in Belgian cities at the turn of the twentieth century
Introduction. Unmarried and Unknown
This essay introduces a special issue on The Lure of the City that examines the attraction of towns to unmarried men and women in the Low Countries during the early modern period and the nineteenth century. The issue has the relation between singles and cities as its main focus. Singles were present in disproportionately large numbers in urban areas, but the question is why? This essay sets out the historiographical framework for the contribution…
Les populations rurales en Europe occidentale de la fin du 18ème siècle aux années 1960
Au cours du 19ème siècle, sous les coups de l’industrialisation et de la mécanisation, la part de la population active travaillant dans le secteur agricole a sensiblement diminué. Néanmoins, la plupart des pays d’Europe occidentale demeurent, au début du 20ème siècle, majoritairement peuplés d’une population définie comme rurale [Rösener, 1994]. Ainsi, sur base d’un seuil standard fixant à 5.000 habitants la limite entre les localités urbaines et…
Lost in registration? Missing occupations of single women in the Bruges countryside, c.1814
The absence of occupational titles for women in historical censuses has stymied numerous scholars. Various authors have explained this phenomenon as carelessness or bias on the part of the census-takers. Women's work was of little interest to the authorities and census officials focused their efforts upon the activities of the head of household. While source triangulation can be a useful tool for uncovering ‘hidden’ employment of women, it is oft…
Spatial inequalities in infant survival at an early stage of the longevity revolution
Spatial inequalities in human development are of great concern to international organisations and national governments. Demographic indicators like the infant mortality rate are important measures for determining these inequalities. Using demographic indic
Regionale Verschillen in het Leven van Ongehuwde Moeders op het Platteland in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden, 1730-1846
TSEG (Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis) - The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, is het Nederlands-Vlaamse vaktijdschrift op het gebied van de sociale en economische geschiedenis
Introduction to special section on the biological standard of living
In December 2008 the WOG Historical Demography organised a workshop at Ghent University that covered a wide range of topics from fertility trends and kinship characteristics to health issues. The presentations and discussions that took place at the workshop provided the inspiration for this special section on the biological standard of living. The articles in this section offer valuable contributions for three of those biological measures: height…
Completing Life Histories with Imputed Exit Dates
Life histories can often be reconstructed from administrative sources and other documents that report specific events, like birth, death, visiting a physician, applying for insurance, or using a service. In a passive system, individuals are not under continuous surveillance, and subjects are only known to be present when an event occurs. When individuals move out of the registration area without reporting their movements, the censoring times for …
Compléter les histoires de vie par imputation des dates de sortie d'observation. Une méthode adaptée aux données historiques
Les biographies sont souvent construites à partir de sources administratives et d'autres documents qui témoignent d'événements particuliers comme une naissance, un décès, une visite chez le médecin, une demande de contrat d'assurance ou le recours à un service. Dans un système d'« enregistrement passif », les individus ne sont pas observés de façon continue, mais lorsqu'un événement se produit. Quand une personne quitte la zone couverte par le sy…
La régionalisation de la surmortalité des jeunes filles en Belgique entre 1890 et 1910
Dans cet article nous avons essayé de retracer l'évolution de la mortalité et des différences de mortalité entre sexes de la naissance à 20 ans en Belgique au cours de la période 1890-1910. Nous avons observé que la surmortalité féminine se manifeste avant tout aux âges 5-19 ans et qu'elle connaît une évolution favorable pendant la période d'observation. En 1910 le phénomène n'est pas aussi général qu'en 1890, mais il perdure dans 21 des 41 arron…
Spatial inequalities in infant survival at an early stage of the longevity revolution
Spatial inequalities in human development are of great concern to international organisations and national governments. Demographic indicators like the infant mortality rate are important measures for determining these inequalities. Using demographic indic
Lost in registration? Missing occupations of single women in the Bruges countryside, c.1814
The absence of occupational titles for women in historical censuses has stymied numerous scholars. Various authors have explained this phenomenon as carelessness or bias on the part of the census-takers. Women's work was of little interest to the authorities and census officials focused their efforts upon the activities of the head of household. While source triangulation can be a useful tool for uncovering ‘hidden’ employment of women, it is oft…
Death at work? Mortality and industrial employment in Belgian cities at the turn of the twentieth century
Introduction. Unmarried and Unknown
This essay introduces a special issue on The Lure of the City that examines the attraction of towns to unmarried men and women in the Low Countries during the early modern period and the nineteenth century. The issue has the relation between singles and cities as its main focus. Singles were present in disproportionately large numbers in urban areas, but the question is why? This essay sets out the historiographical framework for the contribution…
Compléter les histoires de vie par imputation des dates de sortie d'observation. Une méthode adaptée aux données historiques
Les biographies sont souvent construites à partir de sources administratives et d'autres documents qui témoignent d'événements particuliers comme une naissance, un décès, une visite chez le médecin, une demande de contrat d'assurance ou le recours à un service. Dans un système d'« enregistrement passif », les individus ne sont pas observés de façon continue, mais lorsqu'un événement se produit. Quand une personne quitte la zone couverte par le sy…
Much Ado about Nothing? Reconsidering the Smallpox Effect. Height in the Nineteenth-Century Town of Thielt, Belgium
Anthropometric evidence such as height has been considered a major indicator of the social and economic well-being of past societies. To understand differences in attained height, the role of several determinants has been widely discussed. Since the 1990s, the impact of disease has shown to be a promising topic. In particular, research on the effect of smallpox on the height of the population in nineteenth-century England has triggered heated deb…
Décès de jure , décès de facto
Le non-enregistrement de la migration temporaire peut être à l'origine d'écarts importants entre les taux de mortalité selon qu'ils sont calculés sur la base de la résidence légale, effective ou habituelle des personnes décédées. Les taux les plus indiqués sont, selon nous, ceux obtenus à partir de la résidence habituelle. Les résidents habituels sont en effet les plus exposés aux risques attachés à une ville donnée. Les recensements, les statist…
Regionale Verschillen in het Leven van Ongehuwde Moeders op het Platteland in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden, 1730-1846
TSEG (Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis) - The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, is het Nederlands-Vlaamse vaktijdschrift op het gebied van de sociale en economische geschiedenis
Completing Life Histories with Imputed Exit Dates
Life histories can often be reconstructed from administrative sources and other documents that report specific events, like birth, death, visiting a physician, applying for insurance, or using a service. In a passive system, individuals are not under continuous surveillance, and subjects are only known to be present when an event occurs. When individuals move out of the registration area without reporting their movements, the censoring times for …
La régionalisation de la surmortalité des jeunes filles en Belgique entre 1890 et 1910
Dans cet article nous avons essayé de retracer l'évolution de la mortalité et des différences de mortalité entre sexes de la naissance à 20 ans en Belgique au cours de la période 1890-1910. Nous avons observé que la surmortalité féminine se manifeste avant tout aux âges 5-19 ans et qu'elle connaît une évolution favorable pendant la période d'observation. En 1910 le phénomène n'est pas aussi général qu'en 1890, mais il perdure dans 21 des 41 arron…
Completing Life Histories with Imputed Exit Dates
Life histories can often be reconstructed from administrative sources and other documents that report specific events, like birth, death, visiting a physician, applying for insurance, or using a service. In a passive system, individuals are not under continuous surveillance, and subjects are only known to be present when an event occurs. When individuals move out of the registration area without reporting their movements, the censoring times for …
Compléter les histoires de vie par imputation des dates de sortie d'observation. Une méthode adaptée aux données historiques
Les biographies sont souvent construites à partir de sources administratives et d'autres documents qui témoignent d'événements particuliers comme une naissance, un décès, une visite chez le médecin, une demande de contrat d'assurance ou le recours à un service. Dans un système d'« enregistrement passif », les individus ne sont pas observés de façon continue, mais lorsqu'un événement se produit. Quand une personne quitte la zone couverte par le sy…
Introduction to special section on the biological standard of living
In December 2008 the WOG Historical Demography organised a workshop at Ghent University that covered a wide range of topics from fertility trends and kinship characteristics to health issues. The presentations and discussions that took place at the workshop provided the inspiration for this special section on the biological standard of living. The articles in this section offer valuable contributions for three of those biological measures: height…
Regionale Verschillen in het Leven van Ongehuwde Moeders op het Platteland in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden, 1730-1846
TSEG (Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis) - The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, is het Nederlands-Vlaamse vaktijdschrift op het gebied van de sociale en economische geschiedenis
Les populations rurales en Europe occidentale de la fin du 18ème siècle aux années 1960
Au cours du 19ème siècle, sous les coups de l’industrialisation et de la mécanisation, la part de la population active travaillant dans le secteur agricole a sensiblement diminué. Néanmoins, la plupart des pays d’Europe occidentale demeurent, au début du 20ème siècle, majoritairement peuplés d’une population définie comme rurale [Rösener, 1994]. Ainsi, sur base d’un seuil standard fixant à 5.000 habitants la limite entre les localités urbaines et…
Lost in registration? Missing occupations of single women in the Bruges countryside, c.1814
The absence of occupational titles for women in historical censuses has stymied numerous scholars. Various authors have explained this phenomenon as carelessness or bias on the part of the census-takers. Women's work was of little interest to the authorities and census officials focused their efforts upon the activities of the head of household. While source triangulation can be a useful tool for uncovering ‘hidden’ employment of women, it is oft…
Spatial inequalities in infant survival at an early stage of the longevity revolution
Spatial inequalities in human development are of great concern to international organisations and national governments. Demographic indicators like the infant mortality rate are important measures for determining these inequalities. Using demographic indic
Introduction. Unmarried and Unknown
This essay introduces a special issue on The Lure of the City that examines the attraction of towns to unmarried men and women in the Low Countries during the early modern period and the nineteenth century. The issue has the relation between singles and cities as its main focus. Singles were present in disproportionately large numbers in urban areas, but the question is why? This essay sets out the historiographical framework for the contribution…
Tussen familie en instelling? Een analyse van de huishoudtrajecten van doven in Oost-Vlaanderen, 1970-1950
Disability onderzoekers veronderstellen een sociaal segregatieproces voor personen met een beperking in de negentiende eeuw. Voorheen zouden personen met een beperking tot de verantwoordelijkheid hebben behoord van het gezin. Naarmate traditionele familiebanden aan kracht verloren en individualisme sterker werd in de negentiende eeuw, werden ze steeds meer beschouwd als een kwetsbare groep die diende opgevangen te worden door formele instellingen…
Death at work? Mortality and industrial employment in Belgian cities at the turn of the twentieth century
STREAM (Spatiotemporal Research Infrastructure for Early Modern Brabant and Flanders)
This article presents the technical characteristics of the Belgian STREAM-project (2015–2019). The goal of STREAM is to facilitate and innovate historical research into local and regional processes through the development of a spatiotemporal infrastructure for early modern Brabant and Flanders, two of the most urbanized and developed areas of pre-industrial Europe. To this end, STREAM systematically collects a range of key data from a diversity o…
Spatial disparities at death. Age-, sex- and disease-specific mortality in the districts of Belgium at the beginning of the twentieth century
At the beginning of the twentieth century, life expectancy at birth was much lower in Flanders, the northern part of Belgium, than in Wallonia, the southern part of the country. In the literature, this excess mortality is mainly attributed to high levels of infant mortality caused by bad feeding practices and low-quality drinking water. The regional variability of mortality risks at other ages during this period has received less attention. In th…
Much Ado about Nothing? Reconsidering the Smallpox Effect. Height in the Nineteenth-Century Town of Thielt, Belgium
Anthropometric evidence such as height has been considered a major indicator of the social and economic well-being of past societies. To understand differences in attained height, the role of several determinants has been widely discussed. Since the 1990s, the impact of disease has shown to be a promising topic. In particular, research on the effect of smallpox on the height of the population in nineteenth-century England has triggered heated deb…
Décès de jure , décès de facto
Le non-enregistrement de la migration temporaire peut être à l'origine d'écarts importants entre les taux de mortalité selon qu'ils sont calculés sur la base de la résidence légale, effective ou habituelle des personnes décédées. Les taux les plus indiqués sont, selon nous, ceux obtenus à partir de la résidence habituelle. Les résidents habituels sont en effet les plus exposés aux risques attachés à une ville donnée. Les recensements, les statist…
The Limits and Possibilities of Cause of Death Categorisation for Understanding Late Nineteenth Century Mortality
status: Published
Beyond Narratives of Conflict. Modern Medicine, Reproduction and Catholicism in Contemporary Historiography
Over the last two decades, the topic of Western biomedicine and religion has gained firm ground among historians. While taking distance from both confessional approaches and interpretations of the past that were implicitly informed by a narrative of conflict between medicine and religion, historians have recently integrated phenomena of separate coexistence and examples of mutual influence and collaboration in their work. In this article, we disc…
Navigeren door de complexiteit van de coronapandemie
Navigating the complexities of the Covid-19 pandemic In this contribution, we discuss from the perspective of historical demography how the corona pandemic has led to new research themes and different approaches to existing themes. Examples include the effect of pandemics on social inequalities in mortality and fertility in the short as well as the long run. The corona pandemic has given historical-demographic research additional legitimacy as re…
The geography of tuberculosis mortality in Belgium between 1889 and 1991
Tuberculosis (TB) was the leading cause of death in Western countries during the 18th and 19th centuries, rising with industrialization and urbanization, then declining in the 20th century due to improved living conditions, public health measures, and medical advances. While the epidemiology of TB in Belgium has been well described, the spatial and temporal features are less well known. In this article, we examine TB mortality data from “Le Mouve…
Where did people die from cardiovascular disease? Spatial inequalities in cardiovascular mortality in Belgium between 1890 and 2011
In the early 20th century, mortality due to cardiovascular disease (CVD) was relatively uncommon. Most Western countries only faced a huge increase in cardiovascular deaths during the second part of the 20th century only [Grimmeau et al., 2015]. In Belgium, the trajectory of CVD fatalities unfolded in this manner: from 4% of all deaths in 1850 to 9% in 1910, 29% in 1950 and 37% in 1995, followed by a decline from 36% in 2000 to 25% in 2019 [Devos…
Tracing the tumors
This article delves into the challenges and methodologies involved in mapping cancer trends across Belgium during the twentieth century. Disease mapping, pioneered by John Snow and Alfred Haviland, has been instrumental in understanding spatial disease patterns. However, comprehensive spatial cancer studies for Belgium are notably scarce before the 1960s, complicating comparisons over time. This research addresses the gap by mapping cancer mortal…
A Decomposition Approach to Cause-Specific Mortality in the Port City of Antwerp in the Early 20th Century
Building on Janssens' work, which highlights the distinct epidemiological profiles of port cities, this study explores cause-specific mortality in early 20th-century Antwerp, Belgium's largest city and a major international port. Using Arriaga's decomposition method, we compare life expectancy and mortality by cause of death in Antwerp with those in Brussels, Ghent, and Liège, the country's next three largest cities. Despite its status as a bustl…
Geography (11 works) · Political science (11 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Demography (10 works) · Historical Economic and Social Studies (9 works) · History (8 works) · Art (7 works) · Humanities (6 works) · Medicine (6 works) · Population (6 works)