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Diabetic retinopathy diagnostic assessment and treatment options have improved dramatically since the 2002 American Diabetes Association Position Statement. These improvements include the widespread adoption of optical coherence tomography to assess retinal thickness and intraretinal pathology and wide-field fundus photography to reveal clinically silent microvascular lesions. Treatment of diabetic macular edema is now achieved by intravitreous injection of anti–vascular endothelial growth factor agents, and the same drugs are now used for proliferative diabetic retinopathy. Improvements in medications and devices for the systemic therapy of diabetes have also improved the ability of patients to optimize their metabolic control. This Position Statement incorporates these recent developments for the use of physicians and patients.

Ophthalmic Epidemiology published two simple cost models developed by Eckert et al.¹ that estimate the annual loss of economic productivity from blindness and moderate to severe visual impairment (MSVI) based on minimum wage (MW) and gross national income (GNI) per capita. The article, A Simple Method for Estimating the Economic Cost of Productivity Loss Due to Blindness and Moderate to Severe Visual Impairment, concludes the global economy would have much to gain if eye care were made more accessible and affordable to all.

The IAPB Advocacy Guide aims to explain best practice advocacy techniques. It also offers tips on useful tools, and provides some real life examples of successful advocacy in practice.