Vision health education: an idea whose time has come.

Health education has been a cornerstone of public health activities for over one hundred years, but recently it has received renewed interest as a method of promoting preventive health care and individual responsibility for one's own health status. While vision health education has not received the attention that other areas of health education have, the need for such information is apparent, and its anticipated effect upon the visual welfare of the population should be obvious. This paper accentuates some of the common objectives of doctors of optometry and health education specialists.