Eye Health Stats

Sometimes I am surprised by some eye trivia. For example, the American Academy of Ophthalmology publishes some interesting and trivial facts about blindness and eye health. It is sobering to realize that eye care has progressed in the last 100 years and that we just now learning how to treat many of the eye maladies. But comparing the US to the rest of the world really shows how lucky we are to live in the United States.

Worldwide Eye Health Trivia

• Somewhere in the world, someone goes blind every five seconds. Almost half of these incidents are caused by cataracts. 
• A child goes blind every minute. 
• Eighty percent of all blindness is preventable or curable. 
• It is estimated that at least 7 million people go blind every year. 
• Worldwide some 180 million people are blind or visually disabled. This is equivalent to two-thirds of the entire U.S. population. 
• Rates of blindness will double by the year 2020 unless prevention efforts are intensified. 
• People in developing countries represent 90 percent of the world’s blind population and are 10 times more likely to go blind than those in developed countries.

Eye Health Trivia in the United States

• By age 65, one in three Americans has some form of vision impairing eye disease. Like the rest of the world, the leading cause of impairment is cataracts. 
• Of the 119 million people in the United States who are age 40 or over, 3.4 million are visually impaired or blind. This level of blindness and visual impairment costs more than $4 billion annually in benefits and lost income. 
• In California, over 13,000,000 people are age 40 or over and 356,000 are visually impaired or blind. The 356,000 number represents approximately 10% of all visually impaired and blind individuals in the United States. 
• People with diabetes are 25 times more likely to become blind than people without diabetes. 
• Glaucoma is one of the leading causes of blindness in the United States, and the most common cause of blindness among African Americans. Nearly three million people have glaucoma, but half do not realize it because there are often no warning signs or symptoms. 

The dramatic differences comparing the US to the rest of the world shows that with the right healthcare, the eye problems can improve significantly. For example, Africa averages just one ophthalmologist for every 1.25 million people. In comparison, it is estimated that there is one ophthalmologist for every 20,000 people in the North America. With the right medication, the worldwide eye trivia could look significantly different.