Eye health and vision have widespread and profound implications for many aspects of life, health, sustainable development, and the economy. Yet many people, families, and populations continue to suffer the consequences of poor access to high-quality, affordable eye care, leading to vision impairment and blindness.
According to a new report from the Lancet Global Health Commission on Global Eye Health, approximately 1.1 billion people are currently living with untreated vision impairment and more than 90% of these cases can be prevented or treated with existing cost-effective interventions.
The report estimates that addressing preventable sight loss could accelerate global development and contribute to achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, including reducing poverty and inequality, and improving education and access to work.
Key messages
- Eye health is essential to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals; vision needs to be reframed as a development issue
- Almost everyone will experience impaired vision or an eye condition during their lifetime and require eye care services; urgent action is necessary to meet the rapidly growing eye health need
- Eye health is an essential component of universal health coverage; it must be included in planning, resourcing, and delivery of health care
- High quality eye health services are not universally delivered; concerted action is needed to improve quality and outcomes, providing effective, efficient, safe, timely, equitable, and people-centred care
- Highly cost-effective vision-restoring interventions offer enormous potential to improve the economic outlook of individuals and nations; a major scale up of financial investment in eye health is required
- Financial barriers to accessing eye care leave many people behind; eye health needs to be included in national health financing to pool the risk
- Technology and treatment developments offer new tools to improve eye health; thoughtful application is needed to maximise the potential to improve coverage, accessibility, quality, efficiency, and affordability
- The eye health workforce is unable to meet population needs in many countries; major expansion in service capacity is required through increased numbers, sharing tasks, strengthened training, enabling work environments, and effective leadership
- Reliable survey and service data are key to progress in eye health; robust indicator data are needed to shape change and drive action
- Research has been crucial to advances in understanding and treating eye disease; solution-focused, contextually relevant research is urgently needed to deliver innovative prevention and treatment strategies and inform implementation of eye health within universal health coverage
More information on: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(20)30488-5/fulltext