Abstract
Purpose::
To quantify the total economic costs of vision loss in the United States.
Methods::
Epidemiological prevalence data of vision loss, national healthcare and other cost databases were used.
Results::
Vision loss cost the United States an estimated $69.6 billion in 2005 in financial costs and an estimated additional $103 billion is the loss of wellbeing (years of life lost as a result of disability and premature mortality), with 3.56 million Americans visually impaired. Health system expenditures were $50.1 billion for the 15.1 million people treated for visually impairing conditions (excluding properly corrected refractive error). Of this, hospital inpatient services cost $16.3 billion, pharmaceuticals and office-based services (primary care practitioners, medical specialists and allied health care) were each $10.2 billion and hospital outpatient services cost $5.2 billion. Other financial costs included $16.1 billion in community care (paid and unpaid services that provide home and personal care to people with visual impairment), productivity losses ($2.9 billion) and $346 million in devices and modifications (such as Braille/computer modifications, lenses, canes and clocks). Each year, some 600,000 years of healthy American life are lost due to low vision and blindness. Financial costs are borne 32% by individuals (households), 36% by governments and 32% by the rest of society. However, when the value of the net disease burden is included, 73% of the costs are borne by individuals, 14% by governments and 13% by other social entities.
Conclusions::
With demographic ageing, the overall population prevalence and cost of visual impairment is projected to increase in coming decades. Around 76% of visually impairing conditions are currently treated in the United States to avoid vision loss and its costly disease burden.Keywords: visual impairment; cost; economic impact
Keywords: visual acuity • clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: health care delivery/economics/manpower • clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: prevalence/incidence