The Hispanic Institute for Blindness Prevention (HIBP) is a private non-profit organization with the mission to lower the risk of blindness in the Metropolitan DC area by focusing on low income, uninsured, underserved families of any origin, ethnic minorities and other groups at risk of eye and eye-related diseases. Through its work in the community and its expertise in providing culturally competent services it has become an important conduit of health care and social services information and referral source for many families in the D.C. metro area.
The Institute operates with the core mission to contribute to the reduction of blindness among low income, un-insured families and those with limited access to health care regardless of their origin. HIBP specifically aims to increase the number of people who have comprehensive eye exams and dilated eye exams at appropriate intervals and to reduce uncorrected visual impairment due to refractive errors which are consistent practices to the objectives of Healthy People 2020.
HIBP however understands that blindness prevention activities serve as a conduit to address a variety of health issues as often visual impairment is a symptom for other health complications. This is one key finding that surfaced in the first couple of years that HIBP had been in operation. In 2006, HIBP, as the lead agency, implemented a Health and Services Stations (Ventanilla de Salud) at the Mexican Consulate in Washington D.C. following with the opening of the program at the Salvadorian consulates in Washington D.C. and Woodbridge, the Guatemalan Consulate in Silver Spring and the Bolivian Consulate in Washington D.C. all with the task of addressing barriers within the Latino community for access to existing healthcare and social services programs, health education, prevention and referrals.