Education campaign promotes vision screening for vulnerable youth
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
The goal of the recently launched All Children’s Health Initiative for Eye and Vision Excellence is to promote awareness among low-income and racial or ethnic minority households whose children are disproportionately more likely to have an undiagnosed vision disorder.
“Without early detection and treatment, uncorrected vision disorders can impair child development, interfere with learning and even lead to permanent vision loss,” Prevent Blindness said in a press release.
The campaign – a joint effort between Prevent Blindness and the National Optometric Association (NOA) – launched this month to mark Children’s Eye Health and Safety Month. The HHS recognizes Children’s Eye Health and Safety Month as a national health observance.
All Children’s Health Initiative for Eye and Vision Excellence (ACHIEVE) provides educational materials in English and Spanish. It will also host a series of NOA-sponsored webinars that kick off on Aug. 26. NOA member Edwin C. Marshall, OD, MS, MPH, will lead the first webinar on “Envisioning the Vision Health of U.S. Children.”
Children and youth across the U.S. have varying degrees of access to vision care. According to the press release, as many as one in five children enrolled in Head Start programs, which promote school readiness for children younger than 5 years from low-income families, have an undiagnosed vision disorder. Non-Hispanic minors who primarily speak a language other than English at home have the lowest percentages of vision testing, compared to their peers who speak English or Spanish at home.
Prevent Blindness said in the release that vision disorders can impede academic achievement. “Visual functioning is a strong predictor of academic performance in school-age children,” the group said.
Collapse
Read more about
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts