by Daniel Parker, RDPFS Contributor:
Prevent Blindness, in partnership with NORC at the University of Chicago, has released a new Children’s Vision Eye Health Map, “the first-ever online interactive tool specifically designed to display geographic variations in common children’s vision problems as well as visual impairment and blindness.” This map and its corresponding report seek to “provide the public, healthcare professionals, public health professionals, program partners, and government representatives, with county- and state-level characteristics that may impact children’s vision and eye health conditions and outcomes. This data can in turn support the development of policies and practices that improve systems for early detection and treatment of visual acuity loss in children.” According to the map, which uses data principally from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 600,000 American children have uncorrectable vision loss, of whom 45,500 are blind. A substantial proportion of these children have conditions that can be treated successfully if caught early, such as amblyopia (lazy eye) and strabismus (crossed eyes). The highest prevalence of vision loss among children exists in Washington, DC, Mississippi, West Virginia, Arkansas, and Nevada. The map and its accompanying data will inform efforts for the recently introduced bipartisan Early Detection of Visual Impairments (EDVI) Act of 2024 (HR-8400), which was covered in a previous bulletin. Jeff Todd, CEO of Prevent Blindness, stated of the new resources: “As a public health advocacy organization, part of our mission is to make the case for ensuring that vision issues are addressed appropriately, whether through public education or by shaping public policy. The new Prevent Blindness Children’s Vision Health Map was created as a resource for professionals and laypeople alike to better understand the breadth of vision problems in the communities in which they live and work, along with the challenges faced in addressing them.” More information can be found at the links above, as well as in this press release from Prevent Blindness.
