Joshua Ehrlich, M.D., M.P.H.
Assessing Age-Related Vision Impairment
a battery of objective measures of visual function to gauge respondents’ distance and near vision and contrast sensitivity. Dr. Ehrlich played a pivotal role in developing, testing and validating those measures. He can now begin analyzing the two years of available data, More than half of the 14 million people in the U.S. living adding an additional year’s data annually throughout with vision impairment (VI) or blindness are age 65 and the grant’s five-year duration. He will be assisted by older. Racial and ethnic minorities are disproportionateKellogg investigators Lindsey De Lott, M.D., M.S., and ly affected, and the number of people suffering from VI Angela Elam, M.D., M.P.H., and by colleagues at the is anticipated to double by 2050 as our population ages. U-M Institute for Social Research, where he also has Social determinants of health (SDoH) like healthcare a faculty appointment. access and economic stability play a large role in shapThe project has three aims. First, to describe the ing who is impacted. state of vision impairment in older adults. Second, to Older adults with VI are analyze the impact various SDoH thought to be at elevated risk have on VI late in life. And finally, UNTIL NOW, WE HAVEN’T HAD for many adverse outcomes, to study the impact over time of NATIONALLY REPRESENTATIVE including dementia, admission VI and blindness on the developto a long-term care facility, and ment of dementia, placement LONGITUDINAL DATA IN THE U.S. ON even death. in a long-term care facility, and THE CONNECTION BETWEEN VI, SDOH Kellogg clinician-scientist mortality—all factors captured AND CRITICAL LATE-LIFE OUTCOMES. Joshua Ehrlich, M.D., M.P.H., in NHATS. is painting a more precise picWith this project, Dr. — Joshua Ehrlich, M.D., M.P.H. ture of the impact of age-assoEhrlich’s team is responding to ciated vision loss. A leader in vision-related population key strategic research goals included in the National and health services research in the U.S. and around Eye Institute’s five-year strategic plan, as well as interthe world, Dr. Ehrlich has been awarded a National national research priorities articulated by the Lancet Institutes of Health (NIH) R01 grant to analyze newlyGlobal Health Commission on Global Eye Health, a collected data on the vision health of U.S. seniors— worldwide consortium of experts of which Dr. Ehrlich a data set he helped develop. is part. Since 2011, the NIH has funded the National “Until now, we haven’t had nationally representaHealth and Aging Trends Study (NHATS), which, through tive longitudinal data in the U.S. on the connection annual in-person surveys conducted in respondents’ between VI, SDoH and critical late-life outcomes,” he homes, gathers health data annually on more than explains. “These studies are the first step in closing 7,000 adults 65 years and older. In 2021, NHATS added that knowledge gap.”
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R01 Grant 5
