Interprofessional Lifestyle Medicine in Action: Lessons from the Eye

Presentation Summary: Lifestyle Medicine is increasingly recognized as foundational to preventing, treating, and in some cases reversing chronic disease—yet implementation often remains siloed within primary care or select specialties. Sustainable adoption and scale require an interprofessional approach in which multiple disciplines reinforce consistent lifestyle messages, coordinate referrals, and share practical workflows that make behavior change easier for patients to begin and maintain. Interdisciplinary Lifestyle Medicine care strengthens continuity across patient touchpoints, reduces mixed messaging, and increases the likelihood that patients receive the right support at the right time. It also expands capacity for prevention and chronic disease management by distributing brief, evidence-based lifestyle interventions across the care team rather than concentrating them within one clinician or setting.

This session highlights the value of an interprofessional approach and identifies optometry as a compelling—and often overlooked—entry point for whole-person Lifestyle Medicine care. Optometrists see patients regularly across the lifespan, often before other clinicians, and frequently care for individuals with cardiometabolic risk factors that directly affect ocular health. Lifestyle patterns, including nutrition, physical activity, sleep, stress, and tobacco exposure, influence the onset and progression of common eye conditions such as dry eye disease, diabetic eye disease, hypertensive retinopathy, and age-related macular degeneration. Because the eye offers a visible window into vascular and metabolic health, optometry is uniquely positioned to identify risk, initiate brief lifestyle conversations, and connect patients into interdisciplinary Lifestyle Medicine support.

In this 60-minute interactive session, Dr. Chad Jackson, an optometrist who is board-certified in Lifestyle Medicine, will present a real-world model for integrating Lifestyle Medicine into routine eye care. He will describe practical ways lifestyle-focused counseling and education can support prevention and management of eye disease, and how optometry can add value within whole-person, team-based care. Leanne Mauriello, PhD, a behavioral scientist and healthcare transformation leader, will frame the broader opportunity for interdisciplinary Lifestyle Medicine by highlighting gaps in engagement across additional disciplines (e.g., dentistry, chiropractic, and others) and the benefits of expanding Lifestyle Medicine beyond traditional settings.

The presenters will then describe how they partnered to systematically and incrementally integrate Lifestyle Medicine into an optometry practice, including workflow changes, patient engagement and communication strategies, “micro-interventions” that fit into busy clinical encounters, and referral pathways that extend support beyond the eye clinic. Participants will leave with a transferable implementation framework to apply within their own discipline, including practical approaches for building interprofessional partnerships and creating consistent reinforcement across care settings.