Community Services, Needs, and Resources in Visual Impairment: A 21st Century Public Health Perspective

Abstract

This article suggests that a 21st century public health perspective on community needs and resource mobilization in vision impairment be grounded in a holistic concept of the community. This perspective should recognize the nature and magnitude of blindness and visual impairment within the significant technological, demographic, political, and sociocultural changes that characterize today's complex community structures. These changing community dynamics are linked with strategies for organizing and mobilizing resources. The article concludes with three propositions and a call for political action to transform our currently fragmented system of providing services into an integrated strategy for the 21st century.