The American Optometric Association (AOA), founded in 1898, represents approximately 37,000 doctors of

optometry Optometry is a specialized health care profession that involves examining the eyes and related structures for defects or abnormalities. Optometrists are health care professionals who typically provide comprehensive primary eye care. In the Uni ...

, optometry students and para-optometric assistants and technicians in the United States.

Overview

The AOA states that:

The American Optometric Association represents approximately 39,000 doctors of optometry, optometry students and paraoptometric assistants and technicians. Optometrists serve patients in nearly 6,500 communities across the country, and in 3,500 of those communities are the only eye doctors. Doctors of optometry provide two-thirds of all primary eye care in the United States. Founded in 1898, the AOA is a federation of state, student and armed forces optometric associations. Through these affiliations, the AOA serves members consisting of optometrists, students of optometry, paraoptometric assistants and technicians. Together, the AOA and its affiliates work to provide the public with quality vision and eye care.

The AOA has offices in

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...

(the headquarters) and

Alexandria, Virginia Alexandria is an independent city (United States), independent city in the northern region of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia, United States. It lies on the western bank of the Potomac River approximately south of Downto ...

, employing approximately 100 people. The Association also has four special interest sections: The Contact Lens and Cornea Section, the

Vision Rehabilitation Vision rehabilitation (often called vision rehab) is a term for a medical rehabilitation to improve vision or low vision. In other words, it is the process of restoring functional ability and improving quality of life and independence in an individ ...

Section, the Sports Vision Section and the Paraoptometric Section. The AOA and its affiliates work to provide the public with quality vision and eye care by: *Setting professional standards and helping member optometrists conduct patient care efficiently and effectively, *Lobbying government and other organizations on behalf of the optometric profession, and *Providing research and education leadership.

AOA mission

"Advocate for the profession and serve optometrists in meeting the

eye care Optometry is a specialized health care profession that involves examining the eyes and related structures for defects or abnormalities. Optometrists are health care professionals who typically provide comprehensive primary eye care. In the Un ...

needs of the public." The objectives of AOA are centered on improving the quality and availability of eye and vision care. The AOA fulfills its missions in accordance with the following goals: *

Health care Health care or healthcare is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health profe ...

and

public policy Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to solve or address relevant and real-world problems, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs. Public p ...

related to eye care will uniformly recognize optometrists as primary health care providers and ensure the public has access to the full scope of optometric care. * Optometrists and other professionals will look to the American Optometric Association for professional standards,

research Research is "creativity, creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular att ...

and

education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...

leadership which serve to enhance and ensure competent, quality patient care. * The

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

, optometrists and other professionals will turn to the American Optometric Association for reliable and current information related to optometry, eye care, and health care policy.

Journal

The AOA had its own journal, called ''Optometry – Journal of the American Optometric Association'', published by

Elsevier Elsevier () is a Dutch academic publishing company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. Its products include journals such as ''The Lancet'', ''Cell'', the ScienceDirect collection of electronic journals, '' Trends'', th ...

until 2012. It currently publishes relevant articles under the News section of their website.

Colocation

In 2015, the

World Council of Optometry The World Council of Optometry (WCO) is a membership organization for the development of optometry ( eye care) internationally. The WCO is the first and only optometric organization to have official relations with the World Health Organization (WHO) ...

(WCO) relocated to the AOA headquarters in St Louis.

References

External links