Knowledge Impact

At ICEH we aim to ensure all our work is communicated to the eye health sector and beyond. We also have several initiatives that share knowledge and skills among eye health workers globally to improve care.

Community Eye Health Journal

We publish the Community Eye Health Journal (CEHJ), a free, peer-reviewed resource that provides vital updates for eye care professionals working in some of the hardest-to-reach places globally.

The CEHJ is available online, in print and via an app, and over 18,000 paper copies are sent out to 128 countries. There are several editions, including English, Francophone Africa, South Asia and China.

Each paper copy is read by an average of 10 other people, and our articles receive more than 2m ‘hits’ on PubMed each year. For many eye care workers it is their only or main source of ongoing professional development following training.

87% of readers have changed or improved their work based on what they’ve read in the journal. Even simple changes can have a profound impact: ”Now I wash my hands between patients.”

Capacity Strengthening Networks

Low and middle-income countries experience the vast majority of vision impairment, but have a significantly lower proportion of trained healthcare professionals to deal with the problem.

At ICEH we manage the VISION 2020 LINKS & Networks Programme, which aims to build long-term partnerships between eye care institutions in the UK and low and middle-income countries.

Over 30 LINKS have been established, across 18 countries.

Over time, networks dedicated to specific topics have also developed, sharing knowledge and addressing capacity strengthening needs. So far there are networks for Diabetic Retinopathy, Retinoblastoma, Glaucoma and an emerging network for Retinopathy of Prematurity. There are over 120 partners within these networks, which have led to skill sharing and large-scale collaborative research.

For instance, the Retinoblastoma Network has facilitated the Global Retinoblastoma Study Group, which brings together experts from over 150 countries and more than 450 centres worldwide. The network has published several major pieces of research, including revealing that children in low-income countries with the disease are 16 times more likely to die from retinoblastoma compared to those in high-income countries within 3 years of diagnosis.

Open Education

For many eye health professionals around the world, access to high-quality, up-to-date learning resources is very limited. Access to learning may be constrained by rigid application criteria, the mode of delivery and relatively high costs.

Open Education for Eye Health (OEEH) is an online programme that widens participation and enables access to high-quality training materials for public eye health.

The courses have been built with contributions from more than 30 members of our team and 80 external contributors from 25 countries. Five courses now also carry professional accreditation. The course portfolio contains >600 individual open learning resources, which are being used and adapted by multiple training programmes globally.

Overall, >40,000 people from over 180 countries and territories have engaged with these courses. Each course is updated annually to maintain its relevance and quality for the global participants. The courses have become recognised trainings for many institutions.