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Country Map & Estimates of Vision Loss

United States of America

In 2020 in United States of America, there were an estimated 16 million people with vision loss. Of these, 640,000 people were blind.

United States of America

  • GBD Region
    High-income North America
  • GBD Super Region
    High-income
  • Population (2020)
    331 million
  • GDP per capita ($US, 2019)
    65,118
  • Human Development Index (HDI) (2019)
    0.92 (very high)
  • Blindness (crude)
    0.20%
  • All vision loss (crude)
    5.00%
  • Proportion who are female
    55%
  • Gender ratio (age-std)
    1.01

Breakdown of vision loss chart

If you would like to explore these data in different ways, you can select:

  • Location: compare up to three different countries.
  • Time: look at trends in the data between 1990 and 2020.
  • Age: look at vision loss for all ages compared to adults aged 50+.

You can then select the location, year, vision loss measure, age and gender to explore vision loss predicted by the VLEG/GBD 2020 model.

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Crude prevalence of vision loss, 2020

(all ages, males & females)

Source: Data from VLEG/GBD 2020 model, accessed via the IAPB Vision Atlas
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National indicators for eye health services in United States of America

IAPB has collected key national indicator data on an annual basis since 2008.

Data sources include Ministry of Health staff or other key respondents, as well as published data. Data have not been received for all countries, or all indicators. The “Year Last Reported” column shows the most recent data received, and “No data” indicates no data available to IAPB in any year since 2008.

More information on data sources and limitations is available on the National indicators page.

Indicator
Data
Rank
Year Last Reported
Data Source
Cataract surgical service delivery
Effective cataract surgical coverage (eCSC)
No data
Cataract surgeries performed (annual)
No data
Cataract surgical rate (CSR) (per million)
11,000
11 of 176
2011
Wang et al., 2016
Number of eye care personnel by cadre
No. of ophthalmologists
17,600
2015
Resnikoff et al., 2020
Ophthalmologists per million
54.7
56 of 191
2015
Resnikoff et al., 2020
No. of optometrists
37,200
2019
WCO/AVRI/BHVI
Optometrists per million
112.4
26 of 159
2019
WCO/AVRI/BHVI
No. of allied ophthalmic personnel
50000
2015
Ministry of Health or key respondent
Allied ophthalmic personnel per million
156
6 of 102
2015
Ministry of Health or key respondent
Data and assessments
Eye health prevalence data survey completed (since 1987)
Prevalence
Eye Care Service Assessment completed?
No data
International Vision Health Scorecard
7.6
3 of 15
2020
Global Coalition on Aging
National eye health resources and plans
National Eye Health Co-ordinator
No data
National Eye Committee
No data
National Eye Health Plan
Yes
Ministry of Health or key respondent
National Eye Health Plan Start Date
2010
Ministry of Health or key respondent
National Eye Health Plan End Date
2020
Ministry of Health or key respondent