Eye Thrive

Instrument Review and Development

Eye Thrive logo
Project Date

Nov 2023—Jan 2024

Type of Evaluation

Planning

Setting

Community-based, Health

Overview

Eye Thrive is a St. Louis based non-profit that provides free vision services to low-income children. During the 2023-2024 school year, Eye Thrive will provide vision services to more than 20,000 K-12 students, including vision screenings, comprehensive eye exams, glasses prescriptions, referrals to follow up care, and replacement glasses. Eye Thrive delivers services to children in the St. Louis region via on-site school vision screenings and their flagship mobile vision clinic.

The Evaluation Center will support Eye Thrive by reviewing its data collection materials and evaluation procedures, and providing recommendations for improvement.

Project Description

Background

Since 2004, Eye Thrive has provided free vision services to K-12 students in the St. Louis region. St. Louis, like many other communities around the country, struggles to provide equitable access to vision services, as the funding for school-based screenings is limited. Through providing mobile healthcare, Eye Thrive aims to create a sustainable and equitable solution to this gap in access to comprehensive eye care. Additionally, Eye Thrive seeks to understand the ways in which increased access to vision care leads to increased literacy rates and better long-term educational outcomes for students.

The Evaluation Center is partnering with Eye Thrive to assess its data collection procedures and provide recommendations for improvement of instruments and data collection procedures. After the evaluation revision phase of this project, Eye Thrive will work with Washington University researchers and faculty to develop a more comprehensive research project in partnership with a St. Louis school district to examine the full clinical outcomes of Eye Thrive vision services. The final outcome will be a published study documenting the quantitative and qualitative educational impacts of Mobile Vision Healthcare services on low-income students in one St. Louis school district.

Evaluation Center Activities

  • Review four data collection instruments.
  • Provide recommendations for instrument revisions.
  • Provide recommendations for data collection procedures.

Our Products

  • Data collection tools
  • Data collection protocols
Funder

Institute of Clinical and Translation Sciences and Institute of Public Health’s Pitch Partners rapid seed funding

Contact Person
Liz Vestal, MSW, LMSW

Liz Vestal, MSW, LMSW

Evaluation Manager (they/them/theirs)