Program Lead/Presenter: Jimmy T Le, ScD, MA
Collaborators: Jimmy T Le, ScD, MA; Sangeeta Bhargava, PhD; Cheri Wiggs, PhD; Collaborative Clinical Research POs (including Don Everett, MA; Azadeh Shoaibi, PhD; and Maryann Redford, DDS, MPH)
Council Date: June 7, 2024
Goal:
The purpose of this initiative is to advance vision health equity by supporting community-engaged research on multilevel interventions that simultaneously address vision health conditions and social determinants of health (e.g., the broader set of factors shaping conditions of daily life such as housing, transportation, and education). This initiative would require researchers to engage community partners throughout the research process (e.g., design, implementation, and evaluation of interventions) to ensure that interventions under investigation are responsive to community needs and able to achieve sustainable improvements once the research project period ends.
Rationale:
Vision health equity research is an important National Eye Institute (NEI) strategic priority. In 2023, NEI and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities co-hosted a workshop on vision health equity. Despite advances in the prevention, treatment, and management of eye conditions such as refractive error, cataract, glaucoma, and diabetic retinopathy, there are communities who continue to experience a disproportionately higher burden of visual impairment or blindness and poorer health outcomes overall. These include racial and ethnic minority groups, people with lower socioeconomic status, underserved rural communities, sexual and gender minority groups, and people with disabilities. Community-engaged science was also recognized as an important gap in NEI’s current research portfolio. Integrating vision health into broader health equity discussions at NIH furthers NEI’s mission and impact. A vision health equity initiative requires vision scientists to leverage community partnerships and collaborations with other researchers to eliminate vision loss and improve quality of life.
Objectives and Scope:
The objective of this initiative is to catalyze, develop, and evaluate community-engaged multilevel interventions that address health disparities to advance vision health equity. Types of programs that could be supported by this initiative include research projects that aim to:
Features of this initiative include:
- Test mobile eye care in underserved urban and rural areas to improve access to vision health services.
- Collaborate with faith-based organizations, community centers, transit authorities, businesses, and other organizations to deliver vision health interventions.
- Develop and evaluate culturally informed health communication strategies and programs to promote vision health best practices among immigrant and other underserved communities.
- Assess the effectiveness of school-based vision screening programs and their impact on academic performance for children in low resource settings.
Projects developed under this initiative would be required to focus on populations with health disparities (as defined by the NIH) and demonstrate meaningful engagement with community partners, including but not limited to community partners holding roles as key personnel (e.g., as Co-Investigators or co-leading Multi Principal Investigator) on projects. Transdisciplinary collaborations with researchers outside the vision field such as health services, health disparities, education, behavioral science, and social science would also be strongly encouraged.