ECPO Launch

ECPO at ECO: Patient Advocacy in Europe Takes Shape

At ECO 2019, we saw an important new movement emerge – an independent European patient advocacy organization. EASO provides some of the details on this important new organization, which we will know as ECPO:

EASO is delighted to announce the launch of the new EASO ECPO – the European Coalition for People Living with Obesity. The announcement came Monday 29 April at the EASO European Congress on Obesity (ECO2019) in Glasgow.

Formed from the EASO Patient Council, the Executive Director of the new organisation, Vicki Mooney of Lanzarote and Ireland, introduced the new executive team: President Sólveig Sigurðardóttir, Iceland; VP Audrey Roberts, Scotland; Secretary Susie Birney, Ireland; and Communicators Director Alexandra Fraisova, Czech Republic, at the event.

Members of the new patient-led organisation chaired or spoke in 14 medical and scientific sessions at the ECO. ECPO represents 22 national patient-focused obesity organisations and advocacy leaders across Europe. Its mission is to “work collaboratively across Europe to improve the lives of people affected by the chronic disease obesity through advocacy, policy & education.” President Sólveig Sigurðardóttir said “The ECPO hopes to grow from 40 to 40,000 members very quickly. Policy makers, take note!”

Policies to address address obesity are most often either ineffective or harmful to the people affected. The launch of ECPO represents an important milestone in progress toward more helpful and more effective policies in Europe.

To visit the ECPO page on Facebook, click here.

ECPO Launch, photograph courtesy of EASO

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May 2, 2019

One Response to “ECPO at ECO: Patient Advocacy in Europe Takes Shape”

  1. May 02, 2019 at 7:43 am, Mary-Jo said:

    Good to see. And I love it’s pan-European, not just the UK. The experience of being obese in Europe, to me, is different than in America, and even different between continental Europe and the UK. Will be interesting to see if and how these differences may come out.