Sight impairment from childhood can adversely affect development, schooling, employment, independent living, social integration, and general physical and mental health throughout life.

The UK government has set up health and education policies, and specialist services, that all aim to ensure children and young people with sight impairment are able to receive timely diagnoses, treatments and habilitation options. The services also strive to meet complex special education needs well into early adulthood.

However, the effectiveness of any of these policies and services has never before been evaluated in a comprehensive national study. There is a lack of insight - at a national level - about the outcomes of children and young people with sight impairment, as compared to their peers. This, in turn, means that policymakers are inadequately equipped to assess, improve or innovate.

Prof Jugnoo Rahi and her team from University College London will work to identify what is currently working well, areas with room for improvement, and where new services or interventions are needed in eye health, child health and education services.

The team will use a 'Big Data' approach to link various data sources together, to guide meaningful improvements for children with sight impairment across the UK. Specifically, they will utilise data from their two previous landmark UK-wide cohort studies of childhood sight impairment - CVIS and BCVIS2, undertaken in 2000 and 2015 respectively.