U.S. vision report finds increase in eye disease prevalence

Review of Optometry recently highlighted the following report provided by the Prevent Blindness America and the National Eye Institute’s 2012 update of the “Vision Problems in the U.S.” report. The number of individuals age 40 and older with vision impairment and blindness has increased 23% since the year 2000, according to researchers from Johns Hopkins University who conducted the study.

The four most common eye diseases have seen alarming increases since 2000 include:

• 25% increase in Age-related Macular Degeneration among people age 50+
• 19% increase in cataracts among people age 40+
• 22% increase in glaucoma among people age 40+
• 89% increase in diabetic retinopathy among people age 40+

A new online, searchable database available through the Prevent Blindness American website enables users to search for a wide range of information including eye disease and condition numbers, which can be refined by state, age, sex, and race, and provides comparisons across disease conditions.