The potential benefits to the vision rehabilitation field and the people it serves of an ongoing collaboration with public health are highlighted. This article focuses on the current phase of the long-term federal Healthy People initiative, and suggests that the inclusion in Healthy People 2010 of a section devoted to people with disabilities and another that specifically targets vision and hearing loss make this an especially propitious time for an alliance between fields that have historically operated on separate tracks. Formation of such an alliance faces a number of obstacles, however, and action on the part of those working in vision rehabilitation and special education is called for, lest they lose a significant opportunity to enlist professionals in public health in the cause of people with visual impairments.
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