EASL: “As our Mission Evolves so Does the Way we Use our Events”
Traditionally, health congresses have focused more on their communities of practice, peer-to-peer sharing and the professional networking of their target audience – such as general practitioners, medical experts and researchers – as a factor in mobilising international delegations. However, certain associations have changed this paradigm with a strong focus on local players, wider media exposure and a greater emphasis on public health. EASL, the European Association for the Study of the Liver, is one of them and has been realising this vision since its 2022 congress in London. As the Home of European Hepatology, they have guided their mission through four strategies: Education; Advocacy; Science; and Leadership.
We unpack this ever-evolving array of activities, educational events, alliances and social partnerships with Executive Director Ben Hainsworth and Public Health Programme Manager & Advocacy Coordinator Maraika Black.
Headquarters: First of all, tell me more about the perception of impact within EASL and what motivated you to go ahead with your own legacy projects.
Maraika Black: The concept of Impact has become increasingly popular among event organisers and destinations. However, the seed has to come from the association by taking its passion, knowledge and mission to its event destinations. The EASL Impact Project ‘Love Your Liver’ began in 2022 and was the original idea of our executive director, Ben Hainsworth, who was very familiar with association events as a result of his 20 years with the European Society of Cardiology. The idea took shape on a very small scale with a partnership with the British Liver Trust, a UK organisation that provides free tests in a mobile screening clinic and had parked its lorry at our 2022 Congress. We also invited a local hepatologist to give a seminar to a group of 10-12 year olds at a school right next to the Congress Centre. When we released a summary report on these actions, it ended up receiving a lot of positive attention from the media, which helped us raise funds for the project as the industry found out what we were doing. At the Vienna Congress in 2023, we brought our own lorry and visited another school; in Milan in 2024, we also did our own screening and went to four different schools. From London to Milan, just two years apart, we have gone from around 159 people screened to 895 in one year. This is something we continued in Amsterdam last month.
HQ: Ben, what prompted this new conceptual and programmatic approach at your congresses?
Ben Hainsworth: The congress’ value proposition has evolved organically; there has been no change in strategic direction. External circumstances, organisational agility, and a clear vision of what we want to achieve have allowed us, and even obliged us, to challenge the traditional perspective of what we should expect from our congress. Science, education and networking opportunities for Healthcare Professionals (HCPs) remain core to our onsite and online offer – but as EASL’s mission evolves so does the way we use our events. Policy and public health are becoming more central to all that we do. So our Congress naturally reflects that fact. You will find plenty of policy and public education for HCPs there, as well as concerted efforts to use the congress platform to engage local, regional and global policymakers, but also local and national populations, and patient groups. The latter – patient group and population engagement is delivered under the Umbrella ‘Love Your Liver’.
HQ: In Bruges (on Impact Day 2024), legacy and impact were described as an umbilical cord for a new positive affirmation of associations. How have your members reacted to this turn of events?
MB: From the EASL’s perspective, the congress is still deeply scientific due to the nature of its subjects and the needs of its members. In 2022, we were still in a testing phase, but over the years, participants have recognised and joined these projects. This year, in Amsterdam, people from our community in the Netherlands came up to me, offering to volunteer for the initiative. Similarly, I often approached members of our community living there and asked them to help me with the projects. As far as liver disease is concerned, 90% of cases in Europe are preventable. Doctors and HCPs are increasingly aware of their ability to participate in public health policies and how this participation can lead to an evolution in the types of diseases they encounter. One of the facts we invariably revisit is the many emergency departments and hepatology clinics crowded with patients who do not need to be there. We could be preventing these cases by formulating more efficient health policies and releasing preventive information more frequently.
HQ: Thus, this could set a standard in the way you manage patient care in smaller communities…
MB: Yes, absolutely. We need changes in policies and in the way health systems work with comorbid diseases, such as diabetes, for example. Many studies show that the more people are informed, the more they follow preventive measures, leading them to make informed choices about the risks they run. If you look at alcohol-related liver disease, by instance, one of the main priorities we are advocating to the European Parliament is to regulate the labelling on alcoholic drinks bottles.
HQ: What were the criteria for selecting the host cities, and how did they make sense in the various stages of this cycle that began in 2022?
BH: The venues and destinations for EASL Congress were, by and large, selected before the pandemic and will take us up to 2028. RFPs for 2029 and beyond will certainly include a request for financial and in-kind CVB support of ‘Love Your Liver’ as a necessary requirement. Beyond a few key activities, we will not dictate how this should be done, each destination has its own local and national ecosystem – we need to work within that.
HQ: How have these awareness-raising and advocacy efforts with political players been clashing with the objections of profit, free market and consumer regulation, etc.?
MB: In Europe, healthcare is not a competence of the Union but of each member state. As a result, there are different legislative frameworks in each country, even though healthcare systems are mostly subsidised and nationalised. I believe that the commercial determinants, such as corporate lobbyists, consultancies and law firms, are a major challenge for public health organisations. Our job is to hold politicians accountable for the policies they are adopting and make them see that our mission is to save lives. In this sense, we are making progress by seeing more and more public health organisations coming together and pooling resources and evidence for different areas. We are talking not only about alcohol, but also about steatotic liver disease, which is the build-up of fat in the liver. The challenges inherent in liver cancer or viral hepatitis, for example, require us to focus on completely different policies. Therefore, from EASL’s point of view, it is incredibly complex to tackle each of these areas, as the diseases pose very different challenges.
HQ: One of the things that many associations have been telling us is the lack of time, staff or resources to implement projects beyond the walls of the conference space. From your experience, how can these associations do more with less by combining advocacy, education and community building?
BH: Our role as association leaders is to overcome barriers like stakeholder buy-in and scarcity of time and resources. Our experience at EASL is that this is a relatively easy sell for all stakeholder groups. Everyone knows that there needs to be a paradigm shift in liver care (and beyond) away from expensive end-stage liver care and towards earlier prevention. The task of getting diverse stakeholder groups on board, including non-medical people, is that much easier because the content matter is more accessible and universal than much of what we work with – the target groups of children, teachers and the general public show immediate and genuine interest and enthusiasm.
Communication strategies need to be very deliberate and we must be very cautious not to alienate our core academic audiences. For this reason, we need to develop entirely new platforms, channels, formats and styles for local and global initiatives.
HQ: What current partnerships do you have with other European associations?
MB: We are part of a number of different formalised networks, in addition to the various organisations that make up our association. For instance, we have a patient synergy network where we work with eleven patient organisations associated with hepatology. We are also members of other associations, such as the European Cancer Organisation and the Noncommunicable Disease Alliance. Between these relationships, we frequently respond to EU or WHO consultations and produce white papers on policies and guidelines that we consider necessary. Finally, we are creating a European alliance of medical associations with WHO Europe that will advocate for better alcohol policies. This will happen this year.
Published by Meeting Media Group, the publisher of Headquarters Magazine (HQ) – a leading international publication based in Brussels, serving the global MICE industry and association community.
