Making Eye Health a Population Health Imperative

Making Eye Health a Population Health Imperative
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 587
Release: 2017-01-15
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309439981

The ability to see deeply affects how human beings perceive and interpret the world around them. For most people, eyesight is part of everyday communication, social activities, educational and professional pursuits, the care of others, and the maintenance of personal health, independence, and mobility. Functioning eyes and vision system can reduce an adult's risk of chronic health conditions, death, falls and injuries, social isolation, depression, and other psychological problems. In children, properly maintained eye and vision health contributes to a child's social development, academic achievement, and better health across the lifespan. The public generally recognizes its reliance on sight and fears its loss, but emphasis on eye and vision health, in general, has not been integrated into daily life to the same extent as other health promotion activities, such as teeth brushing; hand washing; physical and mental exercise; and various injury prevention behaviors. A larger population health approach is needed to engage a wide range of stakeholders in coordinated efforts that can sustain the scope of behavior change. The shaping of socioeconomic environments can eventually lead to new social norms that promote eye and vision health. Making Eye Health a Population Health Imperative: Vision for Tomorrow proposes a new population-centered framework to guide action and coordination among various, and sometimes competing, stakeholders in pursuit of improved eye and vision health and health equity in the United States. Building on the momentum of previous public health efforts, this report also introduces a model for action that highlights different levels of prevention activities across a range of stakeholders and provides specific examples of how population health strategies can be translated into cohesive areas for action at federal, state, and local levels.

Beyond Vision

Beyond Vision
Author: Allan Jones
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2018-06-06
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0773553800

In this unique and exhilarating autobiography, Allan Jones – Canada’s first blind diplomat – vividly describes how an untreatable eye disease slowly decimated his visual world, most challengingly during his postings in Tokyo and New Delhi, and how he discovered and took to heart the revelatory Indian philosophy that changed his life. Advaita Vedanta, the most iconoclastic and liberating of the classical Indian philosophies, profoundly altered the author’s experience of self and world. He found that the true self, as distinct from the individual ego, far exceeds the boundaries of individuality. It lies beneath sightedness or blindness and is absolutely unaffected by the latter. This welcome shift of perspective was reinforced by startling discoveries in contemporary physics, evolutionary biology, and developmental psychology that are fully consistent with Advaitic metaphysics. As for the practical applications of metaphysics, this book demonstrates step by step how Advaitic insight and practice significantly reduce physical and psychological tension. The most telling examples have to do with adjustments compelled by extreme circumstances. Thus Jones describes how he drew upon Advaitic mindfulness techniques to maintain his white cane mobility skills in the teeth of permanent spinal, nerve, and muscle pain. The arc of Beyond Vision moves from the claustrophobically personal to the openness of the transpersonal. It begins in a dysfunctional family background, breaking out into a full life encompassing an adventurous foreign service career, spiritual exploration, and an unconventional kind of marital love.

How To Go Blind and Not Lose Your Mind

How To Go Blind and Not Lose Your Mind
Author: Mike Harmer
Publisher: Publication Consultants
Total Pages: 88
Release: 2005-08-01
Genre: Reference
ISBN: 1594332290

How To Go Blind And Not Lose Your Mind discusses the process of losing your sight and ways to deal with it. Written through the eyes of a person who has been through the process and survived. How To Go Blind And Not Lose Your Mind begins at the diagnosis, walks you through the stages of sight loss, and explores emotional and physical problems associated with going blind. It describes low vision, legal blindness, loss of independence, and what it may mean to you. You will find what help and visual aids are available. There are physical and emotional problems with loss of sight, however you can still keep your vision about living and enjoy a full, happy life. This book gives more than just hope, it is the vision you need while losing your sight.

Blind Ambition

Blind Ambition
Author: Chad E. Foster
Publisher: HarperCollins Leadership
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2021-02-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1400222656

For anyone seeking to live life to its fullest potential, Blind Ambition is an eye-opening account of a tech industry executive who overcame fear and hopelessness to turn his blindness disability into a powerful, competitive strength. While most people were preparing for the adventure of adult life, Chad E. Foster was watching the world he grew up with fade to black but that didn’t stop him from becoming the first blind person to graduate from the Harvard Business School leadership program and climbing the corporate ladder as a successful finance/sales executive. With determination, ambition, and drive, Chad created what Oracle said would be impossible. He gave millions of people the ability to earn a living by becoming the first to create customer relationship software for the visually impaired. Even if you've been robbed of your self-identity and dreams for the future, you can change your story and achieve your goals. In Blind Ambition, readers and listeners will: Be inspired by Chad’s story of how he transformed the loss of his vision into a gift with unique strengths and abilities he did not have before. See how we choose the stories we tell ourselves about our circumstances and how this either limits us or propels us toward our goals. Gain new perspective on what is possible when you shift your mindset, give up making excuses, and decide that you oversee who you want to be. Learn the mental model that Chad uses to quickly overcome frustrations and stressors. Overcoming the challenges of blindness improved Chad’s perspective, making him more resilient and grateful for the life that he has. Ultimately, Chad's unforgettable lessons and outlook will inspire listeners to overcome their perceived limitations and explore new possibilities where they once may have only seen obstacles. Blind Ambition will teach you how to take advantage of your disadvantages.

Blind Man's Bluff: A Memoir

Blind Man's Bluff: A Memoir
Author: James Tate Hill
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 158
Release: 2021-08-03
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0393867188

A New York Times Editors' Choice A Washington Independent Review of Books Favorite Book of 2021 A writer’s humorous and often-heartbreaking tale of losing his sight—and how he hid it from the world. At age sixteen, James Tate Hill was diagnosed with Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy, a condition that left him legally blind. When high-school friends stopped calling and a disability counselor advised him to aim for C’s in his classes, he tried to escape the stigma by pretending he could still see. In this unfailingly candid yet humorous memoir, Hill discloses the tricks he employed to pass for sighted, from displaying shelves of paperbacks he read on tape to arriving early on first dates so women would have to find him. He risked his life every time he crossed a street, doing his best to listen for approaching cars. A good memory and pop culture obsessions like Tom Cruise, Prince, and all things 1980s allowed him to steer conversations toward common experiences. For fifteen years, Hill hid his blindness from friends, colleagues, and lovers, even convincing himself that if he stared long enough, his blurry peripheral vision would bring the world into focus. At thirty, faced with a stalled writing career, a crumbling marriage, and a growing fear of leaving his apartment, he began to wonder if there was a better way.

Waking Up Blind

Waking Up Blind
Author: Thomas Harbin
Publisher: Hillcrest Publishing Group
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2009
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1934938874

Includes bibliographical references (p. 228-230).

Don't Worry about the Mule Going Blind

Don't Worry about the Mule Going Blind
Author: Betty Tucker
Publisher: CreateSpace
Total Pages: 186
Release: 2014-04-16
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781480226920

Betty Tucker came of age in Belle Glade, Florida, infamous for its poverty and violence (e.g., see the Wikipedia entry and the 2006 documentary One Percent). Her childhood was one of debilitating poverty, borne of racism: exploitive migrant labor, multiple rapes and other abuse, chronic illness among her family and acquaintances ... the list is long and bitter. Betty survived not only by sheer hard work but also by nurturing a nascent belief that she deserved better. She moved to California, earned her college degree, and raised a family. Then, in 1997, she began a long and eventually successful search for the twin girls she had given up for adoption thirty years earlier. Fear, insecurity, sexual abuse, want, neglect: This memoir will look beyond the description of these difficulties in the author's life to examine how they stifled her ability to shape her own life, how she acquired the tools she needed to take more control of her life, and what impact her choices, both intentional and unintentional, had on her life and those of her children.

Going Blind Isn't Easy

Going Blind Isn't Easy
Author: Jim Sinkula
Publisher: Page Publishing Inc
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2016-02-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 168213976X

Jim Sinkula was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1961. You will find a poem in Chapter Six entitled “Memory Lane” which is the name of the street Jim grew up on, no kidding! It was a small, three bedroom, one-bathroom home shared with his parents and four siblings, three sisters and a brother. Most importantly, there was a great sense of community, and nearly every child had two or three other kids within their age group. Front doors were not locked in those days. In 1969, the family moved to Sunnyvale, California, the heart of Silicon Valley. In those days, the valley was still filled with Apricot and Cherry orchards. Both the public and the private grammar schools were merely a block away. Once again, there were lots of kids, BBQ’s and pool parties. Even on rainy days, the temperature was (usually) warm enough to play outside. In 1975, after Jim’s parents were divorced, his mom moved the family a few miles away to Santa Clara, California, where Jim graduated high school. Jim attended college at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He graduated in 1984 with a degree in Finance. In 1988, Jim moved to the San Diego county area, and currently resides in Carlsbad, California. Jim is pictured here with his mom, Lois, at a recent book signing.

The Blind Advantage

The Blind Advantage
Author: Bill Henderson
Publisher: Harvard Education Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2011
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9781612501093

The Blind Advantage provides insight into the challenges, possibilities, and practicalities of including students with disabilities--and into the mind and heart of an inspired and determined leader. "You should get out of education." That was the advice first-year teacher Bill Henderson received when he discovered he was gradually losing his vision. Instead, Henderson persevered and became principal of the Patrick O'Hearn Elementary School in Boston, an ethnically and economically diverse school where about a third of the students have mild, moderate, or significant disabilities. In The Blind Advantage, Henderson describes how the journey into blindness helped him develop key qualities--determination, vision, sensitivity, organization, collaboration, and humor--that made him a more effective principal. At the same time, he shows how the inclusionary policies and practices at the O'Hearn School (now renamed the William W. Henderson Inclusion Elementary School) elicited and developed these qualities in others. An audio version of this book is available for purchase. This audio version was created in collaboration with the Perkins Braille & Talking Book Library.