Original articleThe Economic Burden of Vision Loss and Eye Disorders among the United States Population Younger than 40 Years
Section snippets
Methods
We estimated the prevalence of vision loss and the treated prevalence of diagnosed eye and vision-related disorders. Costs were estimated for each category listed by consensus guidelines. Direct costs include medical care attributable to diagnosed disorders, medical vision aids, undiagnosed vision loss, low-vision aids or devices, special education, school screening, and federal assistance programs. Indirect costs include productivity losses of adults, productivity losses of children's
Prevalence of Vision Loss and Diagnosed Disorders
Among persons younger than 40 years, the prevalence of best-corrected vision impairment and blindness was 1.30% (Table 1). The prevalence of visual impairment was 1.12% for mild impairment (<20/40–20/80) and 0.12% for moderate impairment (<20/80–20/200). The prevalence of blindness (<20/200) was low: 0.10% among adults 18 to 39 years of age and only 0.01% among children. More than 2 million persons younger than 40 years in the United States have uncorrectable vision impairment, and another 98
Discussion
This study provides the first estimate of the economic burden of vision loss and eye disorders among children and adults younger than 40 years in the United States. We estimated the economic burden of disorders of the eye, disorders of the ocular adnexa, and vision loss in this population to be $27.5 billion in 2012 dollars, including $5.3 billion for children younger than 18 years and $21.2 billion incurred by adults 18 to 39 years of age. Monetizing the cost of quality-of-life losses at $50
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∗Group members listed online in Appendix 1 (available at http://aaojournal.org).
Manuscript no. 2012-1444.
Financial Disclosure(s): The author(s) have no proprietary or commercial interest in any materials discussed in this article.
Supported by the Division of Diabetes Translation, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia (grant no.: 200-2008-27958). The findings and conclusions in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, RTI International, or Duke University.
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A complete listing of the Vision Cost-effectiveness Study Group is available at http://aaojournal.org.