The Prevalence of Eye Injury in the United States, Estimates from a Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Purpose: The burden of vision impairment and blindness is typically focused on the most common causes of these conditions, namely cataract, macular degeneration, glaucoma, and diabetic retinopathy. However, the burden of less common but more preventable causes such as eye injury has not been quantified. The goal of this study is to estimate the prevalence of eye injury and eye injury-associated vision impairment and blindness in the United States.Methods: A systematic review was conducted to identify peer-reviewed population-based studies reporting the prevalence of eye injury. The relevant qualitative and quantitative results were extracted from these studies and the latter pooled using a random-effects model. The model results were then applied to the United States population counts to estimate the number of individuals impacted by eye injury.Results: A total of 20 population-based studies met the inclusion criteria for the study. The pooled prevalences of eye injury and eye injury-associated vision impairment and blindness were 7.5 per 100, 4.4 per 1000 and 5.1 per 1000, respectively. These estimates suggest that an estimated 24 million persons in the United States have ever suffered an eye injury, of whom 1.5 million are visually impaired and 1.7 million and 147,000 are partially blind or totally blind, respectively.Conclusions: Eye injury is an important contributor to the burden of vision impairment and blindness in the United States. Prevention efforts should be enhanced to reduce the incidence of these largely preventable events and as should effective therapies to minimize the visual consequences of those currently affected.

Keywords: Eye injury; blindness; vision impairment.