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  • Vision Impairment in Older U.S. Adults

    By Jean Shaw
    Selected and reviewed by Neil M. Bressler, MD, and Deputy Editors
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    Journal Highlights

    JAMA Ophthalmology, February 2023

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    Killeen et al. updated national epidemi­ological estimates of vision impairment and blindness in older U.S. adults. According to their analysis, more than 1 in 4 U.S. adults 71 years and older were visually impaired in 2021.

    For this study, the authors ana­lyzed data from the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS), a population-based, nationally repre­sentative study of Medicare benefi­ciaries. In 2021, NHATS incorporated tablet-based tests of VA and contrast sensitivity. Data were collected from June to November 2021 and analyzed in August 2022. For this assessment, main outcomes were national prevalence of impairment in distance VA, near VA, and contrast sensitivity.

    All told, there were 3,817 respon­dents in the 2021 NHATS sample; of these, 3,026 were eligible for this analysis. The prevalence of visual impair­ment in this group was 27.8% (95% CI, 27.3% to 31.8%). Impairments in distance VA, near VA, and contrast sen­sitivity were prevalent in 10.3%, 22.3%, and 10% of the participants, respec­tively. All types of visual impairment were associated with older age, less education, and lower income levels. In addition, impairments in near VA and contrast sensitivity were associated with non-White race and Hispanic ethnicity.

    The authors noted that NHATS un­derwent sample replenishment in 2022 and is expected to provide visual func­tion data on a larger cohort of adults 65 years and older. Overall, they said, the results of this analysis are “vital for informing surveillance of vision health in the United States and may enable public health programs to target indi­viduals at highest risk of poor vision.” (Also see related commentary by Anne L. Coleman, MD, PhD, in the same issue.)

    The original article can be found here.