Presenter(s): Mitchell Yep—International Studies, General Science
Faculty Mentor(s): Lesley Weaver, Melissa Graboyes
Session 1: Time for Your Check-Up—Decolonizing Global Health
Visual impairment and blindness are debilitating conditions with increasing rates around the globe . The World Health Organization estimates at least 2 .2 billion people have a vision impairment or blindness, of whom at least 1 billion are preventable or remain unaddressed (Bourne et al ., 2017; World Health Organization, 2019) . El Centro de Salud Integral Zoé uses an innovative Mobile Health Clinic model to deliver cataract screenings and visual acuity exams to populations marginalized from the Honduran health care system . Zoé ́s outreach model actively removes systemic barriers that prevent individuals from seeking care such as cost, distance, logistics, and lack of knowledge . The colonial legacy and proposed neoliberal development policies have resulted in the underdevelopment of health infrastructure and widespread exclusion from these services . The expansion of accessible health care is a pressing national issue as the State›s Ministry of Health estimates 18% of the population (over 1 .5 million Hondurans) do not have access to health services (Secretary of Health, 2015) . Implementing the Right to Health under the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and achieving the 2015 United Nations Millennium Development Goals requires the foundation of accessible health care . Mobile Health Clinics present an alternative development strategy to ease disparities of access to health care by bringing medical services to communities that would not receive them .