Foreword
This is a very important piece of work. The sad reality is that preventable loss of vision, which is so often debilitating and tragic, affects far too many New Zealanders. Yet there is no clear, agreed national strategy for the prevention of blindness.
This report highlights the pressing need for a national focus on vision loss and our collective obligation to give expression to New Zealand's commitment to the World Health Organization's global initiative VISION 2020: the Right to Sight, aimed at eliminating avoidable blindness and vision loss by the year 2020. A variety of strategies and actions are required in New Zealand including risk reduction, enhanced early detection, workforce development and coordination, equity of access to eye health and vision care services, improved systems for the delivery of eye care, and the gathering and dissemination of quality evidence.
If we are to achieve maximum benefits for all New Zealanders, experience has taught us that we will need to focus our attention on those communities which are most likely to miss out on care. These are frequently the same communities which suffer poor health in many other respects and have most difficulty accessing high quality and timely health care. For example, the overall prevalence of vision impairment and blindness in Māori aged 45-74 years is twice that of non-Māori and the prevalence of vision impairment and blindness due to uncorrected refractive error in Māori aged 45-74 years is twice that of non-Māori.
I congratulate VISION 2020 New Zealand and the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind for their foresight in promoting and supporting this project. This report represents an essential step in securing an effective national response to preventable vision loss.
Peter Crampton
Pro-Vice Chancellor, Division of Health Sciences and Dean, Faculty of Medicine, University of Otago.
Professor Peter Crampton (MBChB; PhD; FAFPHM, MRNZCGP) is a specialist in public health medicine. His research is focused on social indicators, social epidemiology and health care policy.
This page is part of the overview report Clear Focus: The economic impact of vision loss in New Zealand in 2009.
