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Prevalence and Causes of Vision Loss in High-Income Countries and in Eastern and Central Europe in 2015: Magnitude, Temporal Trends, and Projections
journal contribution
posted on 2023-09-01, 14:14 authored by Rupert R. A. Bourne, Jost B. Jonas, Alain M. Bron, Maria V. Cicinelli, Aditi Das, Seth R. Flaxman, David Friedman, Jill Keeffe, John H. Kempen, Janet Leasher, Hans Limburg, Kovin Naidoo, Konrad Pesudovs, Tunde Peto, Jinan Saaddine, Alex Silvester, Nina Tahhan, Hugh R. Taylor, Rohit Varma, Tien Y. Wong, Serge ResnikoffBackground: Within a surveillance of the prevalence and causes of vision impairment in high-income regions and Central/Eastern Europe, we update figures through 2015 and forecast expected values in 2020.
Methods: Based on a systematic review of medical literature, prevalence of blindness, moderate and severe vision impairment (MSVI), mild vision impairment and presbyopia were estimated for 1990, 2010, 2015, and 2020.
Results: Age-standardized prevalence of blindness and MSVI for all ages decreased from 1990 to 2015 from 0.26% (0.10-0.46) to 0.15% (0.06-0.26), and from 1.74% (0.76-2.94) to 1.27% (0.55-2.17), respectively. In 2015, the number of individuals affected by blindness, MSVI and mild vision impairment ranged from 70,000, 630,000 and 610,000, respectively, in Australasia to 980,000, 7.46 million and 7.25 million, respectively, in North America and 1.16 million, 9.61 million and 9.47 million in Western Europe. In 2015, cataract was the most common cause for blindness, followed by age-related macular degeneration (AMD), glaucoma, uncorrected refractive error, diabetic retinopathy, and cornea-related disorders, with declining burden from cataract and AMD over time. Uncorrected refractive error was the leading cause of MSVI.
Conclusions: While continuing to advance control of cataract and AMD as the leading causes of blindness remains a high priority, overcoming barriers to uptake of refractive error services would address approximately half of the MSVI burden. New data on burden of presbyopia identify this entity as an important public health problem in this population. Additional research on better treatments, better implementation with existing tools and ongoing surveillance of the problem are needed.
History
Refereed
- Yes
Volume
102Issue number
5Page range
575-585Publication title
British Journal of OphthalmologyISSN
1468-2079External DOI
Publisher
BMJFile version
- Accepted version
Language
- eng
Legacy posted date
2018-03-05Legacy creation date
2018-03-05Legacy Faculty/School/Department
ARCHIVED Faculty of Medical Science (until September 2018)Usage metrics
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