MISSION:
To serve the optometric community through the advancement, advocacy, and promotion of public health (including environmental vision) in all aspects of professional and academic optometry
GOALS:
1) To serve as a local, state, and national advocate for public health optometry (including environmental vision)
2) To provide public health leadership in academic optometric institutions and national organizations
3) To encourage and facilitate interaction, cooperation and initiatives among public health optometric educators
4) To support and promote the development and inclusion of primary care public health knowledge into the professional curricula of Schools and Colleges of Optometry so that optometry students will increase their likelihood of success in practice
OBJECTIVES:
1) To develop a common knowledge ¬¬¬base for public health optometry and environmental vision that all optometry institutions would adopt and incorporate into their curricula
2) To contribute new material to and maximize the use of the new online public health textbook, Optometric Care within the Public Health Community within our optometric institutions
3) To investigate the development of an online public health optometry course(s) that all optometric institutions could adopt in lieu of a traditional course(s)
4) To collaborate with the NBEO to ensure that the national part I and part II examinations include test material in the area of public health optometry and environmental vision
5) To develop faculty expertise in public health optometry and environmental vision, including its many clinical applications, through seminars, sharing expertise and experience and through specific on-line resources
6) To foster and support public health optometry and environmental vision research
7) To ensure that public health optometry is integrated into all aspects of the delivery of vision and eye care
8) To ensure that optometric students are well-prepared for their future practice of optometry as the field of health care continues to change and evolve
9) To become an acknowledged resource for organized optometry to utilize in its advocacy role in federal and state legislative efforts related to the nation's public health