Book Review: “The Low Visibility of Low Vision: Increasing Awareness through Public Health Education

"The Low Visibility of Low Vision: Increasing Awareness through Public Health Education," by Rosemary Janiszewski, Shelly L. Heath-Watson, Adrienne Y. Semidey, Arlen M. Rosenthal, and Quynh Do, published in the 2006 Special Supplement of the Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, Volume 100, pp. 849-861. As the program director of the Professional Preparation Program in Vision Rehabilitation Therapy at Salus University and a practicing certified vision rehabilitation therapist, I am responsible for educating and training students, colleagues, consumers, families, and the community about the critical role vision rehabilitation therapists retain throughout the entire vision rehabilitation process. Consequently, I consider advocacy to be an integral component of my professional ethics and practice. Over time, however, my advocacy pursuits have led me to conclude that the vision rehabilitation therapy profession, and other vision rehabilitation professions (low vision therapy and orientation and mobility), are not well known to many of the eye care professionals, consumers, and communities we have been trained to consult and serve. Thus, the continuum of care provided to those individuals with visual impairments (that is, blindness or low vision) falls short. It has been reported that the prevalence of visual impairment is expected to increase as the population lives longer (World Health Organization, n.d.); however, despite valuable global actions to prevent visual impairment, such as the Vision 2020 initiative launched by the World Health Organization and the International Agency on Preventing Blindness, there remains a need for vision rehabilitation intervention when sight-saving measures do not prevail. It is at this juncture in the continuum of care in which individuals experiencing vision loss should be referred to vision rehabilitation therapists and other vision rehabilitation professionals for treatment and training to restore independence and safety. In my role as an educator and advocate for vision rehabilitation therapy, I search for literature and research materials that support the theory, practice, and relevancy of vision rehabilitation service delivery. In that search, I discovered a JVIB article entitled, "The Low Visibility of Low Vision: Increasing Awareness through Public Health Education," and I was immediately intrigued by the article's emphasis on the need for a "public health education program" to increase awareness of low vision, a program that would correspond to professional practice in vision rehabilitation therapy. The article discussed in detail the components of an effective public health education program to increase the awareness of low vision by: identifying the intended audience and formulating an appropriate communication strategy to disseminate the message, pre-testing the communication strategy with the intended audience (that is, use of focus groups); implementing the strategy by collaborating with visual impairment organizations and creating educational materials, exhibits, and programs that further convey the message; and, finally, assessing and evaluating the effectiveness of the communication strategy and identifying refinements where needed. This article spoke directly to one of the major challenges facing the profession of vision rehabilitation therapy today: lack of professional identity and awareness of vision rehabilitation therapy among eye care professionals, people with vision loss, and other members of the rehabilitation team. In April 2014, Salus University and Vision-Serve Alliance convened the Vision Rehabilitation Therapy, Strategic Planning, and Advisory Symposium to address these challenges. Participants included representatives from professional preparation programs, state vocational rehabilitation agencies, the Academy for Certification of Vision Rehabilitation and Education Professionals, consumer groups, and the Veterans Administration. …