Blindness & Vision

Cause Overview

Around the world, compromised vision results in illiteracy, lack of education, underemployment, and poverty. The scale of the problem is staggering. The World Health Organization estimates that in developing nations, seven million people go blind every year, eighty percent from avoidable or treatable causes. For instance, 500,000 children go blind each year from vitamin A deficiency. Additionally, one billion people do not have access to the prescription eyeglasses they need, and an estimated five billion people have never had an eye exam. In the United States, approximately 1.8 million children between the ages of 10 and 14 do not have the eyeglasses they need to see the blackboard or read books. These untreated vision problems have an adverse effect on literacy, education and social development.

The World Health Organization reports that "the treatments available for the prevention and cure of blindness are among the most successful and cost effective of all health interventions." Education can reduce the incidence of eye infections through improved hygiene; refractive errors can be corrected with eyeglasses; Vitamin A combined with adequate protein intake can reduce cases of blindness from xerophthalmia; medicines can treat river blindness (the world's second leading infectious cause of blindness) and trachoma (the world's leading cause of blindness from an infection); and UV-filtering sunglasses can reduce the incidence of retinal damage and cataract, the leading cause of blindness. In the United States, providing eyeglasses for children is a very cost-effective investment, as it eliminates a major barrier to literacy and education.