Prevent Blindness Provides Free Educational Resources for Diabetes-related Eye Disease Awareness Month

Prevent Blindness provides the public and professionals with free webpages, fact sheets, educational videos, toolkits, and social media graphics, to help prevent vision loss and blindness from diabetes

Prevent Blindness has once again declared November as Diabetes-related Eye Disease Awareness Month. Early detection and treatment of diabetes is essential, as the risk of developing significant vision loss and blindness increases the longer someone has diabetes. To help educate the public, including parents and care partners of individuals with diabetes, as well as allied health professionals, Prevent Blindness is offering free resources that include fact sheets and social media graphics in English and Spanish, web pages, and a variety of educational videos.

Additional risks to eye health occur in persons with diabetes. According to the National Eye Institute, those with diabetes are 2 to 5 times more likely to develop cataracts, and to get them at a younger age. Also, having diabetes nearly doubles the risk of developing a type of glaucoma called open-angle glaucoma.

To help educate the public on the impact that diabetes may have on vision, Prevent Blindness has developed a comprehensive library of materials for consumers and professionals, including:

Diabetes + The Eyes Educational Toolkit– Available in English and Spanish, this resource includes Power Point presentations, fact sheets, shareable social media graphics and a dedicated webpage. The Diabetes + The Eyes program is supported by funding from Regeneron.

Prevent Blindness and the Focus on Diabetes^™ video series– This comprehensive series includes a variety of educational videos designed for consumer audiences. Focus on Diabetes is an eye health initiative of the American Diabetes Association^®.