Community Based Public Health Service Model for Testing and Remediation of Children's Vision in Underserved Populations

At a global level, many children and adults struggle with poor vision that remains unidentified and uncorrected. When the need for vision correction remains unmet in children, it can have both proximal and distal implications. Resource constraints due to socioeconomic disadvantages can result in learning difficulties that are cyclical. Improved reading outcomes for children whose vision deficiency was corrected have been demonstrated in previous research.

The Vision Partnership program, named See to Succeed, and implemented by the Houston Department of Health and Human Services (HDHHS), with its strategic public/private partnerships, has addressed vision health among children ages 6-18 in the school system. The program has successfully reached 13,000 children for vision correction, who have failed prescreen vision test or identified by a school representative as a risk of vision problems due to health problem, family history or injuries that have occurred. A significant proportion of students (>80%) in the large and diverse Houston Independent School District in Houston, Texas are identified as belonging to low income families.

Three year data from this initiative will be analyzed to (a) examine risk factors and types of vision deficiencies reported by age, sex and grade level (b) identify structural, financial, intrapersonal barriers to timely vision care in children (c) describe performance improvement strategies implemented to enhance efficiency (d) analyze the relationship between zip code level poverty and various school performance metrics.

Well-functioning multi-sectoral partnerships can build capacity to implement an expansive community-based service model with the capability to provide high volume walk through vision services.