Northwestern awarded $3.4M to study main cause of blindness among US minority populations

By Andrew Nellis
August, 13 2024

The National Eye Institute (NEI) has awarded a 5-year, $3.4 million grant to Northwestern University for the study of diabetic retinopathy (DR) among minority populations. The project, titled the Health Equity and Access to Leverage Technology for Improved DR Outcomes (HEAL-DR), aims to better understand what risk factors contribute to the disease among Black and Latino populations, which are disproportionately affected.

Diabetic retinopathy impacts one in three individuals with diabetes, with minority groups being at a higher risk of developing more advanced conditions such as Proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR). Despite the availability of advanced diagnostic technologies, these populations remain underrepresented in clinical trials, leading to gaps in care and outcomes.

“Diabetic retinopathy can progress rapidly, and if we don’t catch it in time, it can cause permanent vision loss and blindness,” said Dustin D French, PhD, professor of Ophthalmology and Medical Social Sciences, and lead researcher. “It’s detrimental to a huge number of people, but if we can identify risk factors, we can treat it before problems arise.”

To address this disparity, HEAL-DR will draw data from The Sight Outcomes Research Collaborative (SOURCE), a multi-institution repository of clinical information including technology and data of optical coherence tomography, and build a predictive model for assessing that individual risk. Those findings can then inform new clinical guidelines, potentially recommending more frequent check-ups or more thorough testing for at-risk groups.

Multiple factors influence a person’s chances of developing DR, including central macular thickness, blood pressure, blood glucose levels, and cholesterol, which shall be studied jointly.

On a biological level, diabetic retinopathy occurs when the blood vessels within the eye become damaged due to uncontrolled blood sugar. In an attempt to circumvent the damage, the body grows new blood vessels, but these are often malformed and can leak into the sclera, causing permanent vision loss. Symptoms of DR may include blurred vision, floating dark spots, or sudden vision loss.

Beyond the individual impact, diabetic retinopathy exacts a major economic toll in the United States. It’s estimated that about $4 billion is spent annually on diabetic vision care. For those with complete vision loss, the associated costs for treatment and disability are thought to be in the range of a million dollars per person over their lifetime.

The team, led by French, will incorporate specialists in informatics and data science (Abel N Kho, MD), epidemiology (Charlesnika Tyon Evans, PhD, MPH), and ophthalmology (Paul J Bryar, MD) and retina specialist (Jeremy A Lavine, MD, PhD),  and methodologist (Adovich Rivera, MD, PhD).

The project aligns with ongoing national efforts by the National Eye Institute and the U.S.  Department of Health and Human Services’ Healthy People 2030 initiative.

Joshua D. Stein, MD, MS, Frederick G. L. Huetwell Professor in Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the University of Michigan, will co-lead the project.

This research was supported by the National Eye Institute of the National Institutes of Health under project number 1R01EY036341-01. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.