Vision Crisis in America: What is the current web presence?

        When it comes to the problem of eye care for low-income individuals in America, the American Optometric Association dominates the first results. My specific call-to-action in both of my unit productions was to donate to the AOA, so I'm glad that it is so easily found. The AOA gives reasons why people should donate, including specifics such as the fact that there are 46 million low-income individuals who cannot afford an eye exam.

       One issue that came with searching for "vision problems" was that "vision" has different meanings. A lot of unrelated websites appeared regarding the visions of political leaders, which is not the type of "vision" I was looking for. I found that interesting and had not even considered that possibility beforehand.

        So, I started refining my search to the specific word "eye". When searching "Americans who cannot afford eye exams", Google generated 3,140,000 results. Browsing through the first few pages, I found articles about how the different ways low-income citizens can obtain eye exams, whether it be through a national program or a local one. However, my audience is more geared to the middle and high class population who can donate to the AOA, rather than educating the low-income population more about assistance programs.

      There is a lot of information to sort through with my topic. The info pertaining to the AOA's "Vision Cares" program was specific and helpful, but besides that it can be overwhelming. There is less a barrage of information than a barrage of advertising about which optometrist to go to. A lot of irrelevant sites come up-- for example, an affordable eye doctor in Minnesota or Missouri is of no use to my mission. To do a search of Google images, you end up with an overload of creepy eyeballs.

   Some websites that consistently came up in my searches were the following:
   http://www.eyecareamerica.org/
   http://www.allaboutvision.com/
   http://www.nei.nih.gov/health/financialaid.asp
   http://www.aoa.org/
   
       If I were to create a web presence for my topic, I would definitely provide links to the AOA's page about the Vision Cares Program to help the audience understand what specifically their money is going towards. If people are at all unsure, they are far less likely to donate because of the mistrust some organizations have generated. As far as images, I would try to put out more graphs and charts that are easy to read instead of simple images of eyes and glasses which get repetitive.