Two decades ago, Sir John Wilson described eloquently the motivation behind organized efforts to reduce avoidable blindness and subsequent disablement. While his plea for attention to the individual plight of all affected persons remains a compelling force, it is the collective characteristics of these stories that offer insight into strategies to interrupt the combination of disease and inadequate care that leads to vision loss. A public health approach to the control of blinding ocular disease can assess the magnitude and severity of the problem and help to identify these common characteristics upon which interventional programs are based. Descriptive epidemiologic information allows programmatic efforts to be effectively targeted at the most important problems and populations and provides data against which progress can be assessed. In this issue of the . . . [Full Text of this Article]