Prevent Blindness Georgia

The goals of Prevent Blindness Georgia (PBGA) are:

(1) To prevent unnecessary blindness by providing free vision screening and eye exams to children and adults who are vulnerable as a result of being low-income, uninsured, migrant, homeless or otherwise vulnerable.

(2) To ensure that all of Georgia's children are "vision ready" for school ensuring that all children can learn and succeed. Prevent Blindness Georgia (PBGA) strives to ensure that all of the state's young children have a vision screening before age 6.

(3) To help increase public awareness of the importance of eye health screening and safety to help all Georgians to protect their eyes and conserve sight.

(4) To reduce the economic impact of blindness. Prevent Blindness, with the assistance of researchers at the University of Chicago, has calculated that the immediate cost of blindness in the U.S. in 2013 was $145 billion and that it will grow to more than $717 billion in 2050 without intervention. The 2013 cost for Georgians of blindness was an estimated $1.14 billion.

(5) To leverage all available technology to advance the use of tele-health-type medical practices in eye care to make sure that as many Georgians are vision screened as possible.

Annually, Prevent Blindness Georgia provides more than $2 million in free vision services to the state’s under-served citizens, drawing on its 55-years of hard work and proven data-driven outcomes and best practices to carry out programs statewide while working for larger systemic change and health equity.

Through an eye screening and public education program called Star Pupils, PBGA provides eye screening for young Georgians in Title 1 Schools, lottery-funded pre-kindergartens, Head Starts, and some public and private preschools.

On the other end of the age spectrum, PBGA operates a Vision Outreach (VO) program which primarily involves temporary pop-up clinics throughout the state in Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) as well other free health clinics and outreach centers serving the homeless, migrants, those in transitional housing, domestic violence centers, addiction recovery services, and centers affiliated with the Area Agency on Aging.

To further combat the challenges in Georgia of an aging population and the growing incidence of diabetes, Prevent Blindness Georgia developed the Georgia Retinal Imaging Program (GRIP). This program multiples the number of clients the organization can serve because it allows for trained screeners to measure visual acuity and eye pressure as well as to photograph the back of the retina and transmit secure images and measurements to a volunteer ophthalmologist for assessment. The image is viewed by an ophthalmologist without the client having to actually see the physician in-person. Now in its tenth year, GRIP successfully identifies people in early to advanced stages of DR, glaucoma, cataracts, age-related macular degeneration, and other eye diseases associated with aging that, if left untreated, would result in blindness.

To further increase the number of children who can be screened for potential vision problems, PBGA offers a vision screening training and certification program to school nurses, public health nurses, pediatric practices, nursing students, prekindergarten resource workers, and volunteers. This increases the number of people who are properly trained to screen young children for vision problems.

For both adults and children, Prevent Blindness Georgia offers assistance in the fulfillment of prescription glasses. During the last year, the organization provided 5,965 pairs of prescription glasses to adults and numerous vouchers for free eyewear for children.

The organization also engages in year-round public health and safety campaigns to further awareness about glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, workplace eye safety, ultraviolet ray exposure, cataracts, sports safety, fireworks safety, diabetes, and more.

Prevent Blindness Georgia has 55 years of successful history vision screening children and adults and is an affiliate of a national organization that draws upon more than 100 years of best-practices, research and evaluation. As such, PBGA is a part of the only national vision screening and training certification program. The organization has partnerships with vision industry leaders that give the organization access to benefits for the constituents served. PBGA has long, well-established collaborative relationships with a large network of Federally Qualified Health Centers and community-based partners as well as preschools, Head Starts, and many city and county school systems which provide venues for the organization’s services and access to persons in need of eye health services. The organization also participates in state-wide vision and health collaboratives designed to coordinate vision care services for both adults and children. These collaboratives work to advance knowledge about collaborating partners’ services to increase access to care for Georgia’s residents and to reduce duplication of services to leverage and maximize resources. Further, PBGA contracts annually with the Georgia’s Department of Public Health to deliver specific deliverables and receives some support through the Drive for Sight campaign funded by voluntary donations of $1 made by Georgia citizens renewing their driver’s licenses.

PBGA is led by qualified professionals with decades of experience in the delivery of public health and in the management and leadership of nonprofit organizations. PBGA is governed by a volunteer board of directors that is comprised of business and community leaders as well as several eye care professionals and researchers who advise and guide the policy of the organization.

Prevent Blindness Georgia is the only nonprofit vision organization permitted by the Department of Public Health to sign Public Health Form 3300 which is required by all Georgia children to enter the public school system. This is indicative of the confidence and trust in which the public health system holds the organization. PBGA is the single largest provider of children's vision screening services in the state.