National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine publishes new report focusing on myopia

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The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) has published a report titled Myopia: Causes, Prevention, and Treatment of an Increasingly Common Disease.¹

Prevent Blindness is lauding the NASEM Committee on Focus on Myopia: Pathogenesis and Rising Incidence for rolling out the report on myopia, detailing the impact it has on health, education, and the lifelong potential of an individual.²

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 Early Detection of Vision Impairments for Children Act (EDVI), recently introduced in Congress, hopes to make gains in this area. The federal legislation is backed by a number of the organizations that also sponsored the NASEM report.³

The Prevent Blindness Children’s Vision Health Map details 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,” the organization noted in a news release. “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.”

References:

1. Front Matter | Myopia: Causes, Prevention, and Treatment of an Increasingly Common Disease | The National Academies Press. Nationalacademiesorg. Published online 2024. doi:https://doi.org/10.17226/27734

2. NASEM Publishes New Report on Myopia - Prevent Blindness. Prevent Blindness. Published September 17, 2024. Accessed September 17, 2024. https://preventblindness.org/nasem-publishes-new-myopia-report/

3. A Lifetime of Healthy Vision - National Center. Published April 20, 2020. https://nationalcenter.preventblindness.org