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Gender and Eye Health World Sight Day 2009

Gender and Eye Health World Sight Day 2009. 2/3 of the Blind in the World are Women 80% of Blindness is Avoidable. World-wide Gender Disparity. Women are key income producers and in raising children Young girls care for infants, tend to remain within villages Women are caregivers

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Gender and Eye Health World Sight Day 2009

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  1. Gender and Eye HealthWorld Sight Day 2009

  2. 2/3 of the Blind in the World are Women 80% of Blindness is Avoidable

  3. World-wide Gender Disparity • Women are key income producers and in raising children • Young girls care for infants, tend to remain within villages • Women are caregivers • In treating women, we treat many children, elderly, women and men

  4. Gender Disparities • Women live longer/age-related diseases • AMD • Cataracts • Reasons other than Age • Dry eye, trachoma, auto-immune diseases • Access to care ½ that of men • unoperated cataract adult/child • Poor access to follow up

  5. Trachoma • Women bear ~75% of trachoma-related blindness • role in community- work in fields, child rearing • contact with children who harbor chlamydia • Women are less likely to have access to care for trichiasis

  6. Trachoma • Chlamydia trachomatis infection • antibiotics • Repeated infections and scarring of palpebral conjunctiva

  7. Trachoma • Entropion and trichiasis • surgery • Corneal opacification from irritating lashes

  8. Trachoma - Solutions • Awareness • Education (SAFE), involve family in decision • Key informants • Female-female communication • Access • Antibiotics to reach males and females equally; multiple approaches • Bring surgery to the community • Acceptance • Involve local leaders • Teach surgical approach, assure competent surgeons for both genders

  9. North Carolina Initiative Sandy Barnhart • Barriers to eye health in Randolph County, NC • Qualitative approaches (focus groups, surveys) • Quantitative (local health department statistics, Center for Disease Control)

  10. Randolph County • Median income (2002) - $23,629 ($27,785) • High School dropout – 6.3% vs. 4.9% • Bachelor's degree – 11% vs. 22% • Births to mothers who smoke – 18% vs. 14% • Low birth weight infants more than in state which is 13.6% of live births (US rate-12.7%)

  11. Opportunities for Ophthalmologists • World-wide • Organizations (Carter Center, ORBIS, etc.) • US • Education (smoking, BMI, diabetes, toxocara) • Vision 2020 initiative to eradicate avoidable blindness by 2020 • Data collection (little data on eye health and gender at county level) • Barriers differ regionally

  12. Communication is a Key

  13. http://www.womenseyehealth.org/educational/educational.htm http://www.who.int/topics/blindness/en/ http://www.preventblindness.org/ http://www.seva.org/ http://www.iefusa.org http://www.aao.org/ http://VISION2020.org Praveen@aravind.org kcco@kcmc.ac.tz rpkandel@wlink.com.np Maggie@seva.ca suzgilbert@earthlink.net References

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