Vision Statistics

According to the American Foundation for the Blind (www.afb.org) and the US Census Bureau (www.census.gov) it is estimated that in the US alone:

·        Five million individuals age 65 or older are blind or severely visually impaired and this number will double by 2030.  

·        Only 8% of individuals over age 65 with a limitation in seeing have Internet access, and only 3% use a computer on a regular basis (Gerber & Kirchner, 2001).

·        8%  of the male population is colorblind (this is 1 in 12 males).

·        Ten million individuals wear glasses and are still visually impaired.

·        1.3 million individuals are legally blind.

·        93,600 students in 1996 were visually impaired or blind.

·        55% of individuals with severe visual impairments or blindness do not have a high school diploma compared to 20% among fully sighted individuals in the same group.

"More than 1 million Americans 40 and over are blind from eye disease.  An additional 2.3 million Americans are visually impaired."
- National Eye Institute & Prevent Blindness America, 03/02

"In 2002, Americans are expected to spend a total of $16 billion dollars on optical products."
-   Jobson Optical Research, 2002

"More than 10 million children (or one in four) in the United States were expected to begin the 2002-2003 school year with an undetected vision problem."
-   Vision Council of America, July 2002

"Research indicates that 70% of the 2 million school-age children who have difficulty in reading have some form of visual impairment, such as ocular motor, perceptual or binocular dysfunction."
- Vision Council of America, July 2002