Making Indigenous Eye Health More Visible
A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Global Health".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 January 2023) | Viewed by 2394
Special Issue Editors
Interests: māori health; indigenous health; primary care; long term conditions; health services
2. Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Population Health, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland 1142, New Zealand
Interests: health equity; access to health services; epidemiology; routinely collected data/health information systems; evidence synthesis; knowledge to action
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: public health; eye care; health services and policies; health equity
Interests: vision in public health; population-based studies on prevalence and causes of blindness/visual impairment, uveitis, vulnerable populations
Interests: ophthalmic epidemiology; eye care for marginalized/underserved populations; global health; human resources in health
Interests: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and social justice, equity; access to health services; Indigenous and Tribal groups eye care
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Poverty, institutional racism, and barriers to quality clinical care create and maintain poor health outcomes among Indigenous Peoples globally, including eye health. Australia is the only country that has quantified the disparity in eye health experienced by Indigenous Peoples at a national level, finding that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples experience vision loss at almost three times the rate of non-Indigenous Australians. The picture is likely not better elsewhere, but a lack of data has rendered the eye health of Indigenous Peoples invisible, stemming from a lack of attention from political leaders, funders, health providers and researchers.
In this Special Issue, we invite Indigenous researchers, and the eye health, Indigenous health and public health communities to join us to close this evidence gap. We welcome submissions on any aspect of improving Indigenous Peoples eye health in any country, with a particular interest in those that have a strengths-based focus on communities and that include recommendations for the institutions that hold power and resources to achieve health equity. We particularly encourage submissions that prioritise Indigenous research methodologies, and explore how Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing or Indigenous health approaches can be applied to eye health.
Indigenous practitioners are vastly under-represented in the eye health workforce. For example, Māori are ~1 in 6 of all New Zealanders, yet are only ~1 in 85 of all eye care practitioners. In Australia, there is only one Aboriginal ophthalmologist; there are no data on Indigenous eye care providers in Latin America. We believe a key strategy to improve eye health for Indigenous Peoples is to create more opportunities and ongoing support for Indigenous practitioners, and we welcome submissions that critically assess workforce issues.
We encourage you to review the CONSIDER Statement prior to submission (doi: 10.1186/s12874-019-0815-8), and to get in touch if you would like to discuss your project.
We look forward to reading your submissions, highlighting outstanding Indigenous eye health programmes, practitioners, and research, and assembling an interesting and impactful Special Issue to make Indigenous eye health more visible.
Dr. Matire Harwood
Dr. Jacqueline Ramke
Dr. Juan Carlos Silva
Dr. João M. Furtado
Dr. Benoit Tousignant
Guest Editors
Jacqueline (Jaki) Adams
Renata Watene
Guest Editor Assistants
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- indigenous peoples, first nations, aboriginal and torres strait islander peoples, ethnic minorities
- decolonising eye health
- structural racism
- SDGs
- universal health coverage
- cultural capability, cultural safety and cultural responsiveness
- integrated people centred eye care
