Outcomes of an inner-city vision outreach program: give kids sight day

Low-socioeconomic urban children often do not have access to ophthalmic care.

To characterize the demographic characteristics and ophthalmic conditions in children attending Give Kids Sight Day (GKSD), an outreach ophthalmic care program held annually in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, providing vision screening and immediate treatment when needed.

Retrospective case-series study of children attending GKSD in 2012 (GKSD 2012) at an ophthalmology center in Philadelphia. Registration forms and records of all children attending GKSD 2012 were reviewed.

Demographic characteristics, insurance status, spoken languages, reasons for attending, prior failure of vision screening, and attendance pattern of previous events were analyzed. The ophthalmological findings of these children were examined, including refractive errors, need for optical correction, and diagnoses for which continuous ophthalmic care was necessary. For children who needed ophthalmic follow-up, the rate of return to clinic and barriers for continuous care were analyzed.

We studied 924 children (mean age, 9 years; age range, 0-18 years; 51% female; 25% speaking a non-English language) coming from 584 families who attended GKSD 2012, of whom 27% were uninsured and 10% were not aware of their insurance status. Forty-two percent of participants had public insurance, which covered vision care and glasses, but 35% did not know their benefits and did not realize vision care was covered. Forty-nine percent of children attended because they failed community vision screening. Provision of free glasses and failure of previous vision screening were the most common reasons families elected to attend GKSD (64% and 49%, respectively). Eighty-five percent of children attended GKSD 2012 for the first time, whereas 15% attended prior events. Glasses were provided to 61% of attendees. Ten percent of the attendees needed continuous ophthalmic care, most commonly for amblyopia. Ten children needed ocular surgery for cataract, strabismus, nystagmus, ptosis, or nasolacrimal duct obstruction. With the assistance of a social worker, 59% of children requiring continuous treatment returned to the clinic, compared with 2% in prior years before social worker intervention.

Programs such as GKSD can bridge the gap between successful vision screening and ophthalmic treatment, a gap that often occurs in low-socioeconomic urban populations. Those with public insurance coverage for vision services may not realize these services are covered. Social worker intervention is useful in overcoming common barriers to follow-up care.