The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) has published a new report, Myopia: Causes, Prevention and Treatment of an Increasingly Common Disease
Prevent Blindness congratulates the NASEM Committee on Focus on Myopia: Pathogenesis and Rising Incidence for issuing this new report on myopia highlighting the broad impact it has on health, education, and the lifelong potential of an individual. Prevent Blindness is proud to have been invited to provide input and guidance to the committee for the development of the report.
Among its conclusions, the report states that “the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in collaboration with departments of education at the state level, should take measures to ensure that children receive a vision screening before first grade and a comprehensive eye exam, when needed. An integrated, national data surveillance system is needed for collecting state-level data on vision screening, referrals to eye care providers, sociodemographics (age, race/ethnicity, sex, and geographic location) and outcomes of referrals.”
The recently introduced Early Detection of Vision Impairments for Children (EDVI) Act seeks to do just that. This federal bill is supported by many of the organizations that also sponsored the NASEM report.
The Prevent Blindness Children’s Vision Health Map emphasizes the report’s focus on surveillance. The mapping tool, developed by NORC at the University of Chicago using data from the Vision and Eye Health Surveillance System (VEHSS), provides some initial insight into the dynamics of visual acuity loss and social determinants of health.
Prevent Blindness is committed to improving vision and eye health and preventing vision loss from eye diseases such as myopia. Our organization was founded on preserving children’s vision, and we continue that work today through our National Center for Children’s Vision and Eye Health at Prevent Blindness.