Last modified: Tuesday, September 16, 2008
IU Vice President Marshall to head National Commission on Vision and Health
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sept. 16, 2008
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Edwin Marshall, Indiana University vice president for diversity, equity and multicultural affairs and a professor of optometry, has been appointed as chair of the National Commission on Vision and Health.
The multidisciplinary commission will work to improve the nation's vision health by collaborating with experts in science and health policy to ensure informed analysis and policy recommendations to prevent blindness, improve visual function and eliminate vision health disparities. The commission will provide authoritative information and advice concerning health policy to decision-makers, health professionals and the public at large.
"Our goal is to assure that access to vision care is integrated into public health policy and programs at the national, state and local levels," Marshall said. "The commission will help mobilize a public consensus to articulate through public policy the importance of vision care to the health of the public."
The commission will explore the barriers to access to eye care by high-risk populations, the consequent societal costs of vision impairment and the major forces impacting health care delivery, with an emphasis on primary health care, prevention of vision loss, treatment of disease and rehabilitation of vision conditions.
Its findings will be shared in consensus reports of expert study committees, symposia and convocations engaging multiple stakeholders in debates on national issues, proceedings from conferences and workshops and white papers on policy issues of special interest.
Commission members represent a broad array of stakeholders and expertise in health care. In addition to Marshall, current commissioners include a community health dentist, a physician's assistant, an ophthalmologist, a state health department chronic disease program specialist, a Medicaid policy specialist, the executive director of the National Medical Association, a former U.S. congressman, a current state insurance commissioner and a disabilities specialist and a vision program specialist from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The commission's work is supported by a chief of staff and health policy research professors from the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services. Its first formal meeting will be held in Washington, D.C., later this month.
