Amblyopia, known as "lazy eye," is a leading cause of blindness in children. LCIF's preschool vision screening program enables Lions to conduct screenings for children in order to prevent childhood blindness through early detection and treatment for the most common vision disorders that can lead to amblyopia.
Few children are screened before entering school. It is important that vision screenings be done at an early age when treatment is most effective.
Since 1999, the preschool vision screening program has been one of the Foundation's most popular Core 4 initiatives. Eighteen single and multiple districts in the USA and Taiwan have received multi-year Core 4 Preschool Vision Screening grants, totaling approximately US$2.7 million. In October 2008, the LCIF Board of Trustees approved renewing funding for this program.
Through the program, Lions are able to establish partnerships with medical centers and state health departments to make preschool vision screening successful long-term.
Well trained Lions volunteers screen children ages one through five years old. All results are tracked through state-wide databases, making follow-up of referrals possible. Referred children see eye care professionals in their community and follow-up results are than returned to the administrative office.
Lions volunteers have screened 775,000 children since the program?s inception in 1999. The overall referral rate is 6.0 percent. Complete eye care professional follow-up for referred children (50 percent as a whole) demonstrates a 65 percent predictive value positive, meaning 65 percent (11,203 children) of the children referred truly had a factor that could cause amblyopia. These results demonstrate the true success of the program.
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The number of thriving premature children who attended a 2008 birthday party sponsored by Lions in Elkhart, Indiana, who funded equipment for the neonatal unit at the local hospital.
