Healthy People 2020: Preventing Sensory Impairment and Promoting Vision and Hearing Health

Sensory impairment is a major public health problem in the United States. Vision and hearing loss cause significant suffering, disability, loss of productivity, and diminished quality of life for millions of people. Reflecting the importance of hearing and vision, Vision and Hearing objectives were included in the national health goals for the first time in Healthy People 2010.

During the development of Healthy People 2020, Vision and Hearing became two separate topic areas, and the Hearing topic area was expanded into Hearing and Other Sensory or Communication Disorders. The objectives represent the first comprehensive set of indicators that examine and track sensory impairment prevention at the national level.

The National Center for Health Statistics, CDC in collaboration with the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders and the National Eye Institute, NIH used data from the National Health Interview Survey, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, and other data sources to derive national estimates of visual impairment and hearing loss, balance and communication disorders, prevalence of age-related eye diseases, use of health care services and protective devices.

The presentation will focus on the methodology and graphical data displays that assess current progress towards the targets and elimination of health disparities for the Vision and Hearing objectives. We also will provide a demonstration illustrating how to use the data and metadata for the Healthy People 2020 objectives using the new feature on the HealthyPeople.gov website, which includes tools that chart, map, and export the data for individualized analysis and display.