Girls’ Adjustment with Blindness

Abstract

Blindness is a significant public health problem that affects the health, economic well-being, and productivity of individuals, families, and society as a whole. The focus of population health approaches to eye and vision health should be on creating the conditions in which girls can have the fullest capacity to see and that enable individuals to achieve their full potential. Despite evidence that vision impairment increases the risk of mortality and morbidity from other chronic conditions and related injuries and is associated with a reduced independence in practicing daily activities, eye and vision health is not adequately recognized as a population health priority, so public health action has been extremely limited (Bastable, 2016). Young girls with early onset severe vision impairment can experience delayed motor, language, emotional, social and cognitive development, with lifelong consequences. School-age children with vision impairment can also experience lower levels of educational achievement (WHO, 2021).