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Epidemiological data lacking on low vision, blindness

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Information about the prevalence of blindness and low vision in people in the industrial world between the ages of 20 and 59 is lacking, according to a literature review by a Danish group.

Kamilla Rothe Nissen and colleagues at the National Eye Clinic for the Visually Impaired in Hellerup conducted a literature review of epidemiological studies performed in Western Europe, North America and Australia covering people from 20 to 59 years of age. Only one study covered the whole age range; the overall prevalence of blindness in this study was 0.08%. Higher prevalences, of 0.5% in whites and 0.7% in blacks, were reported in the Baltimore Eye Study, the reviewers noted.

Three studies provided low vision data on the entire age range, although the number of cases was relatively small. In two studies, the prevalence ranged from 0.07% to 0.17%, depending upon the definition used for low vision.

The analysis is published in Ophthalmic Epidemiology.