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Original research
Strengthening the integration of eye care into the health system: methodology for the development of the WHO package of eye care interventions
  1. Stuart Keel1,
  2. Jennifer R Evans2,
  3. Sandra Block3,
  4. Rupert Bourne4,5,
  5. Margarita Calonge6,
  6. Ching-Yu Cheng7,8,
  7. David S Friedman9,
  8. João M Furtado10,
  9. Rohit C Khanna11,
  10. Wanjiku Mathenge12,
  11. Silvio Mariotti1,
  12. Elenoa Matoto13,
  13. Andreas Müller1,
  14. M Mansur Rabiu14,
  15. Tuwani Rasengane15,
  16. Jialang Zhao16,
  17. Richard Wormald17,18,
  18. Alarcos Cieza1
  1. 1Department of Noncommunicable Diseases, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland
  2. 2International Centre for Eye Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom
  3. 3Illinois College of Optometry, Chicago, United States
  4. 4Cambridge University Hospitals, Cambridge, United Kingdom
  5. 5Vision & Eye Research Institute, School of Medicine, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, United Kingdom
  6. 6Institute of Applied OphthalmoBiology, University of Valladolid and CIBER-BBN (Biomedical Research Networking Center Bioengineering, Biomaterials and Nanomedicine), Carlos III National Institute of Health, Valladolid, Spain
  7. 7Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences Academic Clinical Program, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore
  8. 8Singapore Eye Research Institute, Singapore National Eye Centre, Singapore
  9. 9Massachusetts Eye and Ear, Harvard University, Boston, United States
  10. 10Division of Ophthalmology, Ribeirão Preto Medical School, University of São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil
  11. 11Allen Foster Community Eye Health Research Centre, Gullapalli Pratibha Rao International Centre for Advancement of Rural Eye care, L V Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad, India
  12. 12Rwanda International Institute of Ophthalmology, Kigali, Rwanda
  13. 13Colonial War Memorial Hospital, Suva, Fiji
  14. 14Noor Dubai Foundation, Dubai Health Authority, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
  15. 15Department of Optometry, University of the Free State and Universitas Hospital, Bloemfontein, South Africa
  16. 16Department of Ophthalmology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Eye Research Center Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China
  17. 17NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom
  18. 18UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, London, United Kingdom
  1. Correspondence to Dr Stuart Keel; keels{at}who.int

Abstract

Objective To describe the rational for, and the methods that will be employed to develop, the WHO package of eye care interventions (PECI).

Methods and analysis The development of the package will be conducted in four steps: (1) selection of eye conditions (for which interventions will be included in the package) based on epidemiological data on the causes of vision impairment and blindness, prevalence estimates of eye conditions and health facility data; (2) identification of interventions and related evidence for the selected eye conditions from clinical practice guidelines and high-quality systematic reviews by a technical working group; (3) expert agreement on the inclusion of eye care interventions in the package and the description of resources required for the provision of the selected interventions; and (4) peer review. The project will be led by the WHO Vision Programme in collaboration with Cochrane Eyes and Vision. A Technical Advisory Group, comprised of public health and clinical experts in the field, will provide technical input throughout all stages of development.

Results After considering the feedback of Technical Advisory Group members and reviewing-related evidence, a final list of eye conditions for which interventions will be included in the package has been collated.

Conclusion The PECI will support Ministries of Health in prioritising, planning, budgeting and integrating eye care interventions into health systems. It is anticipated that the PECI will be available for use in 2021.

  • public health
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjophth-2020-000533

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    Footnotes

    • Correction notice This article has been corrected since it was published. The acknowledgement and contributors statements have been updated.

    • Contributors SK and AC were involved in planning and drafting the manuscript. JRE, SB, RB, MC, CY-C, DF, JMF, RCK, WM, SM, EM, AM, MR, TR, JZ and RW reviewed and revised the draft. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of WHO.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data availability statement All data relevant to the study are included in the article.