Eye health in children: policy brief

Health, including eye and visual health, is inextricably linked to educational achievement, quality of life, and economic productivity.

Educating children in health in the school setting is as fundamental as building knowledge, and is critical to their ability to learn and therefore fully benefit from education. Health education allows them to acquire the knowledge, attitudes and practices necessary for a healthy life.

Many global programmes and initiatives focus on children and health. It is critical that eye health is part of these global initiatives and that programmes are comprehensive and go beyond vision testing for refractive error, currently the primary focus of school eye health activities. School eye health therefore needs to be fully integrated into both wider school health and eye health programmes.