Prevent Blindness America (PBA) has received a grant from the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, a government agency, to promote eye care for young children.
PBA plans to establish the National Universal Vision Screening for Young Children Coordinating Center. The Center will help develop statewide vision screening and eye health programs for all children before they enter school. It will also help states coordinate their existing vision screening programs, as well as create a standardized performance measure for the screenings.
Prevent Blindness America will also build a National Expert Panel on Young Children’s Vision Screening, including experts from the fields of ophthalmology, optometry, pediatrics and public health.
PBA hopes to improve the current situation, in which more than 12.1 million school-age American children have some type of vision problem, yet only one in three children has received eye care before the age of 6. Significant vision problems that are common among children include lazy eye, crossed eyes and high amounts of nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism.
**Information from allaboutvision.com and preventblindness.orgFor more information on Prevent Blindness America, visit www.preventblindness.org.
Filed under: Eye care | Tagged: ambylopia, children, crossed eyes, lazy eye, maternal and child health bureau, prevent blindness america, strabismus, Vision | Leave a Comment »


