NAEVR Participates in ARVO Meeting to Develop New Tool to Assess Cost of Vision Impairment
On September 17 in Vancouver, Canada, members of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) and guests, including NAEVR Executive Director James Jorkasky, met to work on a methodological model to assess the costs of vision loss and impairment regionally, nationally, or worldwide. This international group included representatives from the World Health Organization, blindness prevention organizations, and health economics researchers. Participants considered epidemiological evidence, direct medical costs, societal costs, productivity, and impact on well-being. Since most participants had published papers on the burden of vision loss in their own countries, they offered useful and varied considerations.
ARVO members Kevin Frick, Ph.D., Paul Lee, M.D., J.D., and Hugh Taylor, M.D., will coordinate follow-up activities, including a paper on the groups recommendations and a course and symposium at the 2008 ARVO Annual Meeting.
Dr. Frick recently served on the Editorial Board for the development of the first-ever Silver Book: Vision Loss, a compendium of the latest data on the incidence and economic burden of aging eye disease, developed by NAEVR in partnership with the Alliance for Aging Research. The Silver Book: Vision Loss will be released at a September 25 Capitol Hill briefing, which will feature comments by Vancouver meeting participant economist David Rein, Ph.D.
 Dr. Hugh Taylor provided opening comments, based on the groundbreaking work of his team in characterizing the economic burden of eye disease in Australia |
 Left to Right: Session organizer Dr. Paul Lee and moderator David Matchar, M.D., whose experience in evaluating the costs of other major chronic diseases enriched the discussion |
 Left to Right: Economists Lynne Pezzullo, BEc, and Dr. David Rein confer. On September 25, Dr. Rein will address the U.S. burden of eye disease at a Capitol Hill briefing sponsored by NAEVR. |
 Left to right: Rainald Duerksen, M.D.; Steve Winyard; Kovin Naidoo, O.D., M.P.H.; ARVOs Joanne Angle; Gullapalli Rao, M.D.; and Serge Resnikoff, M.D., World Health Organization. |