Tim Debroyer: "Beyond self-help. Patient organisations, health activism and representations of disease in Belgium since 1940"

Research presentation by Tim Debroyer, Leuven.

Abstract: 

I will present my PhD project on the history of Belgian patient organisations. My goal is to study such organisations not only as communities of patients oriented towards self-help, but also to take into account the broader functions they fulfilled in critically interacting with healthcare and government, and in influencing wider society. Belgium constitutes a promising case study due to the historically close collaboration between patients and physicians, but also due to the striking difference in the evolution of patient organisations in the two parts of the country. The project scrutinizes a variety of Belgian patient organisations by using a combination of oral history and a qualitative analysis of archival and published sources. More specifically, it will look into the history of Belgian organisations for diabetes, multiple sclerosis, breast cancer, Crohn’s disease and AIDS from the onset of the welfare state in the 1940s. I would greatly appreciate feedback and discussion. This will help to refine my future research plans.