Tracking eye disease at population level
29 January 2021
Winter 2021
As coordinator of the Vision Loss Expert Group, Professor Rupert Bourne has helped international bodies access accurate population-based data about eye health. Now he’s turning his attention closer to home.
In 2007, the Global Burden of Disease Study made an appeal via The Lancet for volunteers to join a group that could provide “population-based data on prevalence of vision loss in order to prepare estimates of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs)”. The body that grew from that – which now numbers more than 100 epidemiology-minded ophthalmologists and optometrists – is the Vision Loss Expert Group (VLEG), the world’s leading epidemiology reference group for eye disease.
Throughout the past 13 years, Professor Rupert Bourne has been the VLEG’s coordinator. Rupert is a population-level eye disease expert, as well as Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon at Addenbrooke’s Hospital; Lead for the Glaucoma Service at Cambridge University Hospitals Trust; and Director of the Cambridge Eye Research Centre. He is also Professor of Ophthalmology at Anglia Ruskin University.
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