Integrating eye health into a child health policy in Tanzania: global and national influences.

ABSTRACT: Global consensus has shifted to focus on how children can be supported to not only 'survive' but to 'thrive'. Blindness and visual loss in early childhood undermine a child's ability to thrive, affecting psychomotor, cognitive, and social development leading to life-long consequences for educational attainment, employment, economic and social status, and wellbeing. Despite this, eye health for children under the age of 5 years has been neglected, and not politically prioritized. In Tanzania, policy makers decided in 2019 to include eye conditions in the national Integrated Management of Newborn and Childhood Illness (IMNCI) programme, despite eye health not being part of the global World Health Organization/UNICEF IMNCI strategy. We conducted a qualitative policy analysis to explore enabli

SUBMITTER: Malik ANJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12360167 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature