About Vision 2020

Vision 2020 USA’s mission is centered around advocacy, education, and awareness. We strive to: 

  • Advocate at the federal, state, and local levels for policies that support eye health and blindness prevention. 

  • Educate the public about diseases that can lead to vision loss and the importance of early intervention. 

  • Raise awareness about available services for those at risk of blindness and individuals with visual impairments. 

Our History

Vision 2020 USA grew out of an initiative by the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) to focus vision health work at regional and national levels. The IAPB, founded in 1975 in England, is a coalition of international and local eye health non-governmental organizations (NGO), academic institutions, hospitals, and corporations dedicated to ending avoidable blindness around the world. IAPB has regional groups with regional chairs following the United Nations (UN) geographic structure. In the US, IAPB/North America comprises the US, Canada, and the Caribbean (non-Spanish speaking countries). IAPB’s Vision 2020/The Right to Sight initiative was inaugurated in 1999 at the UN in Geneva and implemented globally over the next 20 years until 2020. To bring visibility and action to regional and national levels, Vision 2020 bodies were formed including Vision 2020/Australia, India, UK, Europe, Africa, Latin America, and others in different regions of the world.

In 2008, an ad hoc group of US organizations came together to consult and collaborate under the leadership of Dr. Louis D. Pizzarello, the IAPB/North America chair at the time, to plan for a Vision 2020 USA body focusing public health eye care in the United States. The group reached out to potential members, both IAPB member agencies and non-member agencies, as well as researched how other Vision 2020 bodies around the world had formed themselves. The result was the launch of Vision 2020 USA held on April 30, 2009, at the Stone House at National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, MD, USA. Peter Ackland, then CEO of IAPB, attended along with 33 representatives of 29 organizations including the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and National Eye Institute (NEI). Vision 2020 USA’s main role has been advocacy and coalition building for like-minded US stakeholders in eye health. From 2009-2019, Vision 2020 USA held its annual meeting in July in conjunction with the Prevent Blindness Focus on Eye Health Summit, generally with a mid-year meeting held virtually later in the year.  Over the years there have been numerous conversations around the role of the coalition, but the primary function for many years was to coordinate an annual World Sight Day Congressional Vision Caucus Briefing in October.

In 2019, key advocacy work was done by Dr. Mitchell Brinks and Dr Sandra Block to bring the issue of vision and eye health as a public health issue to the Surgeon General’s Office. Despite the COVID19 pandemic’s consumption of the nation’s and world’s public health priorities, Vision 2020 USA kept moving forward in its coalition building and advocacy work and was officially incorporated on August 14, 2020, in the state of Oregon. In 2023, a letter signed by Vision 2020 USA members was sent to the US UN Ambassador requesting their support of a UN Envoy for Vision and Eye Health.

Since 2024, under the leadership of Dr. Rajeev Ramchandran and Dr. Dean VanNasdale, the focus of Vision 2020 USA has been on addressing health disparities and establishing health equity in access and uptake of eye care to narrow the eye and vision health gaps that exist between various cultural, racial, ethnic, and social economically defined groups. The group has been active at the Global Ophthalmology Summit in the US in collaboration with the American Academy of Ophthalmology and is currently showcasing what each of its members are doing around the US to address health disparities at the population and public health levels though monthly webinars and on-line discussions. As Vision 2020 USA continues to engage and grow membership in its coalition in 2025, it proceeds with work to highlight the importance of vision health surveillance, interventions to address barriers to access to eye care, and appropriate standardization of program evaluation and outcome metrics that will support policy changes to facilitate achievement of eye and vision health equity in the US.