Publish date September 3, 2009

Statistics about blindness and eye disease

Find out which gender is more likely to become blind, which is the leading cause of blindness, how often are adults and children visually impaired or blind …

Worldwide

  • 314 million people are visually impaired 
  •  Of the 314 million, 37 million are blind, 124 million have low vision and 153 million have uncorrected refractive errors
  • Two thirds of both blind and visually impaired people are women.
  • Four-fifths, or 80%, of blind and visually impaired people live in developing countries.
  • 1.4 million children under the age of 15 are blind
  • More than 90% of the world’s visually impaired people live in low and middle income families
  • Cataract is the leading cause of blindness
  • Age-related causes of visual impairment and blindness are increasing, as is blindness due to uncontrolled diabetes
  • Major risk factors for blinding or vision-impairing diseases globally are age, gender, and socioeconomic development.

Every 5 seconds one person in the world goes blind !!

United Kingdom

  • 2 million people are visually impaired
  • Over 360,000 people are registered blind or visually impaired
  • Age-related macular degeneration (40%), glaucoma (13%) and diabetic retinopathy (8%) are the three most common causes of visual impairment of those registered as visually impaired
  • 25,000 children under the age of 16 are visually impaired
  • By the age of 65, 1 in 6 will become blind or partially sighted

Every day around 100 people in the UK start to lose their sight!

USA

  • There are estimated to be over 1 million legally blind people, including over 700,000 women.
  • Over 3.4 million Americans suffering from visual impairment, about 2.3 million are women.
  • Women bear a larger burden than do men in the U.S. and other industrialized countries because, on average, they outlive men.
  • Adding to the inequity, however, is the possibility of biological (perhaps hormonal or immunological) predisposition to some eye diseases known to be more prevalent in women.

Taken from: http://www.fightforsight.org.uk
                     http://www.womenseyehealth.org