Members of Ontario's 133 First Nations communities gathered on March 1 and 2, 2017, for the 11th annual Chiefs of Ontario Health Forum in Toronto. The Health Forum focused on "Transforming the Future of Community Health & Wellness." Canon Canada participated, and hosted a special eye-screening workshop called "The Eyes Are Connected to Our Bodies" with two prominent doctors: Dr. Khadija Shahid and Dr. Ben Szirth.

Shahid is a clinical assistant professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Iowa. Szirth is a consultant to Canon Medical Systems (USA) and Canon Inc. (Japan). Currently, he is the director of the Applied Vision Research Laboratory at the New Jersey Medical School and the program director of the Ophthalmic Telemedicine Program, a community-based outreach service addressing the homeless and low-income families of New Jersey.

As part of the workshop, five-minute vision screenings and on-site assessments were offered to attendees. The demand for the vision screenings was so great that Canon offered more than one session to accommodate the high registration numbers.

There are four common vision-impairing diseases that affect men and women around the globe: glaucoma, cataracts, macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy. There are high rates of diabetes in First Nations people compared to the general Canadian population. Statistics from 2011 showed that 17.2% of First Nations people living on reserves had type 2 diabetes, likely caused by a combination of environmental (lifestyle, diet, poverty) and genetic and biological factors.

Eye disease resulting from diabetes remains a major cause of blindness in the world. In 2011, there were 366 million people suffering from the disease, and this number is expected to rise to 552 million by 2030. That's why detecting retinal disorders as early as possible is critical to potentially preventing serious disease progression and even vision loss. Early detection leads to lower-cost preventive care, and Canon can help with advanced digital retinal imaging that uses high-resolution imaging systems to take pictures of the inside of the eye.