Causes and Prevalence of Visual Impairment Among Adults in the United States The Eye Diseases Prevalence Research Group*

Objectives:Toestimate the cause-specific prevalence and distributionof blindness and lowvision in theUnited States by age, race/ethnicity, and gender, and to estimate the change in these prevalence figures over the next 20 years. Methods: Summary prevalence estimates of blindness (both according to the US definition of6/60 [20/200] best-corrected visual acuity in the better-seeing eye and theWorldHealthOrganization standard of6/120 [20/ 400]) and low vision (6/12 [20/40] best-corrected vi-sion in the better-seeing eye)were prepared separately for black, Hispanic, and white persons in 5-year age inter-vals starting at 40 years. The estimated prevalences were based on recent population-based studies in the United States, Australia, and Europe. These estimates were ap-plied to 2000 US Census data, and to projected US popu