Action needed to improve equity and diversity in global eye health leadership

Summary

Women in low and middle income countries (LMICs) tend to have poorer access to eye care due to socially constructed gender norms that limit their mobility and financial decision-making power. In high-income countries (HIC), services are less accessible to ethnic-minority groups and indigenous peoples, and subsequently these groups are disproportionately afflicted by vision impairment and blindness.

Global eye health organisations that place women, and people from ethnic minority and LMIC backgrounds, in leadership positions are likely better placed to respond to the unequal distribution of eye health and care between and within countries.