World Sight Day 2023: Focusing on preservation of vision in the workplace

World Sight Day is Thursday, October 12, 2023, and this year’s spotlight is focusing the world’s attention on the importance of eye care in the workplace. (Adobe Stock / KPs Photography)

World Sight Day is Thursday, October 12, 2023, and this year’s spotlight is focusing the world’s attention on the importance of eye care in the workplace.

The International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IABP), the sponsor of World Sight Day, has this goal:

“Together, we will encourage employers to make eye health initiatives standard practice and promote eye health habits that will benefit the well-being, safety, and productivity of millions of employees.

“The first step is prioritizing your own eye health, and we invite you to pledge to #LoveYourEyes. The next step is motivating the world’s employers to provide quality eye care to their employees. From factory floors and office buildings to staff rooms and studios, let’s ensure that eye care is available, accessible and affordable to all.”

Steps that can be taken to preserve vision include everything from avoiding accidents in the workplace, which are too often caused by or lead to poor vision, to productivity, which is greatly improved when the eye health of workers is made a priority, IABP explains.

To initiate and support Love Your Eyes at Work, the IAPB has created resources to ensure that employers and employees can tend to their eye health in the workplace.

“If you are a human resources professional, an operational health and safety officer or run a small business, we invite you to download these free resources and share them on your intranet or in weekly staff emails,” IABP said.

Visit their website at https://www.iapb.org/world-sight-day/toolkits-and-resources/#Workplace

Hand-in-hand with IABP, many organizations are actively involved in promoting World Sight Day. One such organization is Optometry GivingSight.World Sight Day is GivingSight’s largest annual fundraiser, which the organizers explained, brings the global optometric community together to eradicate uncorrected refractive error by giving the gift of sight to families around the world.”

While World Sight Day is only 1 day, interested parties can donate or register for fundraising through the month of October to give underserved people the leg-up they may need to obtain needed eye services, GivingSight explained.

The organization’s 2023 theme is “Help us give sight and change lives, together.” Individuals can join the challenge by participating in any way they can, through donations; walking, running, or riding to support the cause; or by raising awareness.