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NEWARK, N.J.—Congress has included a $2 million reduction to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vision and Eye Health Initiative (VHI) in the fiscal year 2026 appropriations package, reducing the program’s budget from $6.5 million to $4.5 million—a cut that amounts to almost one-third of its current resources. The reduction appears in the final appropriations language that funds the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and Education after months of federal budget negotiations that included the 43 day government shutdown and a continuing resolution that expires on January 30, 2026.
While lawmakers did not eliminate the VHI, advocates warn the reduction of funds could affect core public health functions the program has supported since its creation in 2003.
The VHI provides a mix of state grants, national surveillance and community capacity building. Its work includes pilot grants for innovative approaches to screening and referral, notably projects that use telehealth and artificial intelligence to detect and refer people at high risk for glaucoma in rural and underserved communities, as well as operation of the Vision and Eye Health Surveillance System (VEHSS) and the National Resource Center for Vision and Eye Health.
According to VHI, roughly 7 million Americans have vision impairment that is not correctable with eyeglasses, including about 1 million who are blind. VHI data and forecasts also indicate that rates of vision loss and eye disease are expected to double by 2050 as the population ages and chronic conditions such as diabetes increase.
“Reducing VHI’s budget from its current level of $6.5 million to $4.5 million in FY26 takes away nearly one-third of the total funding currently available to conduct basic public health functions—including community-level intervention programs, surveillance and public health coordination—which help people avoid preventable vision loss across the country,” said Prevent Blindness in a statement opposing the cut. Prevent Blindness leaders also noted that the National Eye Institute at the National Institutes of Health remains funded at $896 million in the same bill.
If enacted, the reduction could limit the scale or scope of state pilot programs that have already used telehealth and AI tools to preserve vision among people at highest risk for glaucoma, officials said. It may also constrain VEHSS’s ability to collect and disseminate timely data on who is receiving eyecare services and why gaps in care persist—information that both state and local programs use to target interventions.
Prevent Blindness has said it will work with Congress in fiscal year 2027 to seek re-investment in national vision and eye health programs.
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