Philippe De Wals gained his Medical Degree and a Doctorate in Public Health in his home country of Belgium, at the Louvain Catholic University. His early academic and professional career combined teaching and epidemiologic research at the Louvain Catholic University School of Public Health in Brussels with the practice of family medicine. In 1990, he moved to Canada and became the Head of the Department of Community Health Sciences at the University of Sherbrooke. In 1997, he was appointed visiting Professor at the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, USA. In 2002, he became Head of the Department of Social and preventive medicine at Laval University, Quebec City, until 2010. He retired from Laval University in 2019 and remains associate professor at Sherbrooke University and at Laval University, and emeritus professor at the Louvain Catholic University.
Professor De Wals’ research is centered on the epidemiology of infectious diseases, reproductive abnormalities, and the assessment of health services and public health programs and policies. He is the author of more than 200 articles published in scientific journals and has contributed several chapters to textbooks. Currently, Professor De Wals is a member of research centers at the Quebec University Hospital, the Sherbrooke University Hospital and the Quebec Heart and Lung University Institute. He also serves as medical advisor to the Quebec National Institute of Public Health and the Public Health Agency of Canada.
In 1990, Professor De Wals was awarded the Jean Van Beneden Prize in recognition of his excellent work in the public health field in Belgium. In 2005, he was elected to the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium. He was awarded the price for excellence of the Quebec Community Health Specialists Association in 2007. In 2020, he was an awardee of the Collen-Francqui International Professorship at Antwerp University.