The new Vision Atlas will be launched on World Sight Day 12th October 2017 by the International Agency for Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) and will be available via http://atlas.iapb.org
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Members of the VLEG have worked with the IAPB and several sponsors to create the Vision Atlas which features visualisations of the blindness and vision impairment data by country and cause data by region, prepared by the VLEG from analysis of the Global Vision Database. This is a great example of actionable data and this website offers the opportunity to disseminate these latest global and country-level findings to any internet user. As stated on the Vision Atlas website, this development gives us the opportunity to create a public conversation that helps persuade decision-makers in government and the private sector to tackle what is largely an avoidable problem. A briefing pack can be obtained from the IAPB by contacting communications@iapb.org

Published by Lancet Global Health on Aug 2 2017.*
 
Global causes of blindness and distance vision impairment 1990–2020: a systematic review and meta-analysis. To be published by Lancet Global Health on October 11 2017.
 
Both articles are open access.
*can be accessed by following this link: ​http://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(17)30293-0/fulltext

​Rupert Bourne, Konrad Pesudovs, Jost Jonas and Vinay Nangia attended this 4 day event with a Training Day in GBD methods and developments, followed by 2 days of lectures on the GBD collaboration and impact. Hosted by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington and the international medical journal, The Lancet, we attended a special event with Bill Gates, Co-Chairman of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Dr. Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank that tracked the evolution of the GBD Study, the actionable data that it has produced and will continue to provide, and its importance in influencing policymakers at every level. It was a truly inspirational event and there was opportunity to discuss future strategy for vision loss analysis with the GBD core team at IHME.

In February 2016, the Vision Loss Expert Group convened a workshop of experienced ophthalmic epidemiologists at the World Ophthalmology Congress in Mexico. We agreed on the value of the generic “Strengthening The Reporting of Observational studies in Epidemiology” checklist. However, we also identified unresolved challenges. These included issues around the standardisation of vision impairment and eye disease definitions, study design and measurement protocols, analysis approaches, and how best to ascertain and report the risk of bias. We determined a need for consensus guidelines on the conduct and reporting of population-based eye and vision surveys.

An inclusive working group has been formed to move this forwards.  Our aim is twofold:

• To promote high quality eye and vision surveys in the future through sharing best practice insights.
  
• To develop a framework against which to grade future studies included in meta-analyses including, but not limited to, those undertaken for the Global Burden of Disease Study.

Over 50 colleagues with direct experience in the design, conduct and analysis of eye and vision surveys are involved in this. If you would like to contribute your expertise to this working group, please get in touch!

For further information please contact:
tasaneebraithwaite@gmail.com

The Vision Loss Expert Group works with NASA to display its work on global vision loss at the biggest eye research event, ARVO, USA

The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) holds its annual global eye research conference in Baltimore, USA this year, (7-11 May 2017). The latest estimates for global blindness and vision impairment will be presented by The Vision Loss Expert Group (VLEG) in scientific sessions that includes a Special Interest Group entitled “Global Prevalence of Blindness and Vision Impairment: Magnitude, Temporal Trends, and Projections: are we on track to meet VISION 2020 and WHO Global Action Plan goals and beyond?” on 9 May.

A collaboration with NASA with sponsorship by Brien Holden Vision Institute, The Thea Foundation, Ocular Services on Demand, EyeKor, Anglia Ruskin University and support by the ARVO Foundation for Eye Research, will display an eight foot tall globe of the World onto which is projected global, regional and country blind and vision impairment data from the group, with special feature videos from core members of the VLEG.

​The Vision Loss Expert Group (VLEG) continue to provide data and collaborate with the GBD Study in preparation and validation of GBD Outputs from 2010 to 2016. The initial tranche of VLEG data and analyses (together with other GBD data) were released in the first ever dedicated special issue of The Lancet in December 2012, with many subsequent related publications in The Lancet and other major international journals.

​The VLEG was requested to supply blindness prevalence data to National Geographic magazine which published a feature on this in their September 2016 issue.

1. VLEG prevalence data have been used in a recent analysis of economic cost of blindness in Europe. A paper entitled “The Economic Impact of Blindness in Europe” by Usha Chakravarthy, Eliana Biundo, Rasit Omer Saka, Christina Fasser, Rupert Bourne, and Julie-Anne Little, will be published in early 2017 in Ophthalmic Epidemiology.
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2. VLEG findings were used in the global analyses of eye-health economics carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers’s economic reports ‘Price of Sight’ and ‘Investing in Vision’ (Feb 2013) [2]. This economic report calculates the costs and benefits of achieving the IAPB’s VISION 2020 goal of eliminating avoidable blindness by the year 2020.  It highlights the importance of eye-health for economic prosperity. Key findings include: “In developing countries, an additional investment of only US$2.20 per capita per year for 10 years is required to eliminate avoidable blindness and visual impairment” and “In developing countries, the economic benefits of eliminating avoidable blindness and visual impairment outweigh the costs by a factor of 4 to 1”. The report identifies economic incentives for other governments and third-sector organisations to invest in eye-health programmes, improving public health and economic productivity, as seen, for example, in the draft Eye Health Strategy by Vision2020 Australia for 2014 to 2019 (May 2013).

​The IAPB launched the IAPB Vision Atlas on the occasion of its 10th General Assembly in Durban, South Africa in October 2016. At this meeting members of the VLEG were involved in a keynote speech that introduced the latest 2015 prevalence estimates for blindness and vision impairment and met at a symposium that discussed the regional and causal breakdown of the data.

The IAPB Vision Atlas brings together the latest data and evidence related to avoidable blindness and sight loss; tells the story behind the numbers; presents solutions, and good practice; highlights the opportunities to eliminate some blinding conditions; and warns of emerging threats that, if ignored, could reverse the progress that has been made in reducing prevalence over the past 25 years.

The IAPB Vision Atlas is animated around two major data sets: national indicators based on the WHO Global Action Plan (2014-19)(GAP); Data and prevalence estimates from the Vision Loss Expert Group (VLEG) data.
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The IAPB Vision Atlas website can found at atlas.iapb.org.