Statistics on Blindness and Blinding Diseases in the United States
GENERAL
- 100 million Americans are visually disabled without corrective lenses (70 million are myopic).
- 80 million people suffer from potentially blinding eye disease.
- 33,700,000 visits are made to doctors for eye care each year.
- 11,400,000 people have severe visual conditions not correctible by glasses.
- 6,400,000 new cases of eye disease occur each year.
- 2,800,000 people are visually handicapped from color blindness.
- 1,100,000 people are legally blind.
- 650,000 people are hospitalized each year for eye injury or disease.
CATARACT
- 5,500,000 people have vision obstructed by cataract.
- 3,700,000 visits are made to doctors' offices each year because of cataracts.
- 1,350,000 cataract extractions are performed each year.
- 400,000 new cases of cataract develop each year.
GLAUCOMA
- 60 million Americans are at risk for developing glaucoma.
- 10 million people have above-normal intraocular pressure that may lead to glaucoma.
- 3 million glaucoma-related office visits are made to doctors each year.
- 2 million people are visually impaired by glaucoma; 1,000,000 more have the disease but don't know it.
- 120,000 people are presently blind from glaucoma.
- 5,500 people become blind each year from the disease.
AGE-RELATED MACULAR DEGENERATION (AMD)
- 13 million people have signs of macular degeneration.
- 6,300,000 people are projected to develop AMD in 2030, compared to 1.7 million in 1995.
- 1,200,000 people are in the later stages of macular degeneration.
- 230,000 people are blind from macular degeneration.
RETINAL DISEASE
- 16 million diabetics are prime targets for blinding disorders.
- 7 million diabetics suffer from diabetic retinopathy.
- 700,000 diabetics are presently at risk of blindness.
- 100,000 people have retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a family of progressive inherited diseases that cause deterioration of the retina and blindness.
- 65,000 diabetics each year develop proliferative diabetic retinopathy, the most sight-threatening stage.
- 25,000 new cases of blindness are caused annually by complications of diabetes.
- 25,000 cases of retinal detachment are treated each year.
CORNEAL DISEASE
- 10 million office visits for corneal problems are made each year.
- 4,219,000 people have sight impaired by corneal dystrophies.
- 500,000 cases of herpes are reported each year.
- 44,000 sight-restoring corneal transplants occur each year.
STRABISMUS
- 7,500,000 people struggle with strabismus (cross eyes).
- 5 million people are visually deprived from amblyopia.
- 2-4% of the population is born with or develop strabismus (the most important cause of visual impairment in children) during their first 6 years of life.
UVEITIS
- 2,300,000 people suffer inflammatory disorders, such as uveitis, which affects the middle layer of tissue behind the white of the eye (sclera) and causes visual impairment.
- 30,000 cases of blindness are due to uveitis.
ALMOST ALL BLINDNESS in the United States is the result of common eye diseases. (Less than 4% is the result of injuries.)
Worldwide, 42 million people are blind.
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