At EASL, we are boosting partnerships with umbrella patient organisations engaged in liver diseases. Our joint goals include increasingly to:

• take into account the patient experience
• consult on patient views on quality of life
• better understand what patients need from healthcare professionals
• promote the prevention of liver conditions

EASL is building new opportunities to engage with umbrella patient organisations, aiming to:

• share best practices
• inspire joint initiatives and activities
• coordinate and convey relevant messages

On 5 June 2024, as part of the EASL Congress 2024 in Milan, Italy, the EASL hosted the Patient & Advocate Forum focused on Patient Experiences in Clinical Settings. The forum featured discussions on improving patient experiences, highlighting challenges and initiatives from the AISF perspective. Topics included strengthening community-based HCV services, people-centred harm reduction strategies, and the essential integration of liver disease in multidisciplinary care for patients with hemoglobinopathies. The forum also addressed patient experiences in accessing health services, unmet patient needs, and the necessary changes in the doctor’s office to better meet these needs.

Watch it on demand!

On 21 June 2023, as part of the EASL Congress 2023 in Vienna, Austria, EASL hosted the Patient & Advocate Forum focused on Lived Experiences – Challenges on the Ground & Patient Perspectives. The forum included updates from Liver Patient International, Global Liver Institute, the Thalassaemia International Federation, and the World Hepatitis Alliance. It also featured community-led recommendations from the ERN Rare-Liver network on how to improve the care of patients with rare liver diseases.

Watch it on demand!

On 22 November 2021, EASL held its annual Patient Forum on the topic: health literacy to empower patients and address inequities. We collaborated with five members of our Patient Synergies network to bring together the expertise of patient advocates and healthcare specialists and hold an engaging discussion around the status of health literacy, with a special focus on literacy related to liver health.

Read more about the event, watch it on reply, and download the report

On 4 November 2020, EASL held its first online Patient Forum, a vibrant exchange exploring synergies between our association of professionals and regional patient organisations engaged in the fight against liver disease.
Scientists, practitioners, and patient advocates discussed two EASL Policy Statements released at Digital ILC 2020, one addressing the coexistence of alcoholic fatty liver disease and alcohol-related liver disease; the other on drug use and the global hepatitis C elimination goal. A dynamic, constructive debate took place on combining the forces of evidence-based EASL Policy Statements and the power of patient advocacy, to mobilise for positive change in public health.

Read more here. Watch the recordings of the EASL Policy Statement on the coexistence of NAFLD and ARLD and the EASL Policy Statement on Drug Use and the Global Hepatitis C Elimination Goal.

EASL Policy Statements

Browse numerous EASL Policy Statements, in full versions and lay versions.

Lay summaries

Journal of Hepatology lay summaries

• Browse the lay summary archives

JHEP Reports lay summaries

• Lay summary on fighting fatty liver disease

On 12 April 2022, EASL announced the recent publication of its first ever, accessible lay summary, a 20-page publication intended for the general public, people at risk of – or already living with – non-acohol related fatty liver disease (NAFLD). It complements a comprehensive patient guideline already published in EASL’s open-access journal, JHEP Reports, thus providing the public with different resources to match differing health literacy levels.
Read about the lay summary and access related resources

• Browse the lay summary archives

EASL Campus resources

Create your free account on EASL Campus to access patient-focused resources, including:

• EASL and ESCMID Position Paper, lay version: Care of patients with liver disease during the COVID-19 pandemic
• Ask EASL: Patient-oriented webcast on COVID-19 and the liver

COVID-19 resources

• EASL policy statement on the use of COVID-19 vaccines in people with chronic liver disease, hepatobiliary cancer, and liver transplant recipients
• Lay summary 1: Care of patients with liver disease during the COVID-19 pandemic
• Lay summary 2: Impact of COVID-19 on the care of patients with liver disease: EASL-ESCMID Position Paper after 6 months of the pandemic.
• COVID-19 toolkit for liver patient associations

Podcasts

• Ask EASL: podcast on COVID-19 vaccination in patients with liver disease

In this episode, Prof. Markus Cornberg is joined by Dr Christiane Eberhardt and Prof. Daniel Shouval, to answer a range of questions raised by EASL’s Patient Synergies regarding the recently approved COVID-19 vaccinations. They address topics including the reasons for the rapid development of the vaccines, whether immunocompromised liver transplant patients should receive the vaccine, real-world data from vaccination programmes worldwide, and the potential duration of immunity. Listen here.

• Ask EASL: podcast on liver cancer

On the occasion of Liver Cancer Awareness month 2020, we held an interview with Dr Massimo A. Iavarone, hepatologist at the Ospedale Maggiore in Milan, Italy. We are putting questions from patient organisations to a specialist, who answers them clearly and accessibly.

Dr Iavarone answers key questions raised by two EASL-affiliated patient associations, then both part of our EASL Patient Synergies collaboration: PSC Support, the leading organisation for anyone affected by primary sclerosing cholangitis, and Liver Patients International (LPI). Listen here.