About the Commission

Eye health affects nearly everyone at some point in our lives. Worldwide, there are currently 1.1 billion people living with vision impairment, and hundreds of millions more have ongoing eye care needs.

Yet there are existing, highly cost-effective treatments for more than 90% of people living with impaired vision, meaning they are suffering needlessly. This has a wide social and economic impact globally, particularly in low and middle-income countries.

This report builds on the worldwide initiative for the elimination of avoidable blindness, “VISION 2020: The Right to Sight”, the publication of WHO’s World Report on Vision (2019) and the 73rd World Health Assembly resolution on integrated people-centred eye care (2020).

An older man looks through a retinoscope

Key messages and recommendations

1

Eye health is essential to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals; vision needs to be reframed as a development issue

2

Almost everyone will experience impaired vision or an eye condition during their lifetime and require eye care services; urgent action is necessary to meet the rapidly growing eye health need.

3

Eye health is an essential component of universal health coverage; it must be included in planning, resourcing and delivery of health care.

4

High-quality eye health services are not universally delivered; concerted action is needed to improve quality and outcomes, providing effective, efficient, safe, timely, equitable, people-centred care.

5

Highly cost-effective vision-restoring interventions offer enormous potential to improve the economic outlook of individuals and nations; a major scale up of financial investment in eye health is required.

6

Financial barriers to accessing eye care leave many people behind; eye health needs to be included in national health financing mechanisms to pool risk.

7

Technology and treatment developments offer powerful new tools to improve eye health; thoughtful application is needed to maximise the potential to improve coverage, accessibility, quality, efficiency and affordability.

8

The eye health workforce is unable to meet population needs in many countries; major expansion in service capacity is required through increased numbers, sharing tasks, strengthened training, enabling work environments, and effective leadership.

9

Reliable survey and service data are key to progress in eye health; robust indicator data are needed to shape change and drive action.

10

Research has been crucial to advances in understanding and treating eye disease; solution-focused, contextually relevant research is urgently needed to deliver innovative prevention and treatment strategies and inform implementation of eye health within universal health coverage

About Us

Commissioners

The Commission was co-chaired by Prof Matthew Burton and Prof Hannah Faal. All Commissioners were supported by their employing organisations to undertake this work.The Lancet Global Health Commission on Global Eye Health is the work of an interdisciplinary group of 73 academics and national programme leaders and practitioners from 25 countries.

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Secretariat

The Commission was supported by a dedicated group of researchers who supported Commissioners to undertake the evidence synthesis and new analyses that informed the report.

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Editor

The Lancet Global Health’s Editor-in-Chief, Zoë Mullan, was instrumental in developing the Commission.

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