You'll find the daltons and the diopters, the millimeters of mercury and the microns and many other statistical signposts that are so integral to the ARVO research work whose description makes up most of our May issue. One you won't find much of—$. But you can if you look.

A group at the University of Southern California looked at eye-care utilization among Latinos in the Los Angeles Latino Eye Study. (Abstract #1165) Nearly half of the population studied never had a complete eye exam. One of the most significant independent risk indicators for poor compliance with vision care guidelines: lack of health insurance.—$.

Another group at the University of Wisconsin plumbed the Beaver Dam Eye Study data for eye-care utilization patterns. (Abstract #1939) Among their findings: Factors independently associated with shorter times between eye exams include increasing income.—$.

Health literacy is a term that has gained some "currency," as they say, in recent years. It relates to the ability to read, comprehend and execute written medical instructions. Researchers at Detroit's Wayne State University looked specifically at such literacy among urban glaucoma patients. (Abstract #1929) Among the principal factors associated with patients who have poor health literacy: income.—$.

Researchers at Los Angeles' Charles Drew University considering the connection between social economic status and self-reported vision impairment found the highest prevalence of subjects reporting trouble seeing even with glasses or contact lenses in the lowest economic group.—$.

What got me thinking of this was the reappearance this week of an old acquaintance, Kathryn Duke. We interviewed her a couple of years back on an article that looked at glaucoma care among lower-income patients. She just published a study in the April 1 issue of the American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy that details many of the problems that get in the way of effective use of pharmaceutical companies' patient assistance programs. Sad to say that, despite the reported increase in company spending on these programs, there is still much, much work to be done to get medicine to Americans who are sick and need it and can't pay.

Let's congratulate all of the fine researchers and scientists whose work is celebrated in Ft. Lauderdale this month. Let's hope that the dollars that make their work possible continue to flow. And let's look forward to the day when $ is not one of the symbols that health-care researchers need to consider when studying patients and diseases.