November 2017. HEPAHEALTH Project Report
This project, commissioned by EASL ( the European Association for the Study of the Liver) aimed to describe the burden of liver disease in 35 European countries, to understand and describe the risk factors for liver disease and mortality, and to identify interventions to reduce risk factors and associated incidence of liver disease in Europe.
The project involved data collection from published and grey literature, as well as analysis of data from international databases. Liver disease mortality and prevalence varies largely across Europe, with North-South and East West gradients in the rates and causes of disease, as well as differences in trajectory of time trends, with countries seeing large reductions over the last decades, while others have increasing rates in recent years. Similarly, the main determinants of liver disease vary across countries, with alcohol, obesity and infection with hepatitis virus playing roles to different degrees in different populations. Our review of interventions indicate that there is a range of established pubic and individual-level interventions to prevent liver disease through the reduction of the upstream risk factors in the population.