Globally, an estimated 252.6 (95% CI, 111.4-424.5) million people live with best-corrected visual acuity of 20/60 or worse in the better-seeing eye. 1 People in the US fear losing vision more than memory, hearing, or speech, and consider visual acuity loss among the top 4 worst things that could happen to them. 2 No existing estimates appear to have used empirical data to estimate geographic differences, created estimates for persons younger than age 40 years, or accounted for increased prevalence in group quarters.Previous studies have estimated national visual acuity loss or blindness prevalence for important age ranges. The Vision Problems in the United States (VPUS) study estimated uncorrectable visual impairment and blindness for persons ages 40 years and older to occur in 4.2 million individuals (2.9%) in 2010. 3 Using similar methods and data for 2015, Varma et al 4 estimated national and state visual acuity loss or blindness prevalence for persons ages 40 years and older and arrived at a similar estimate of 4.24 million cases (2.8%). Both of these studies 3,4 are limited, since they excluded persons younger than 40 years and persons living in group quarters, such as nursing homes and prisons. Both studies 3,4 relied on metaanalytic summaries of similar selected population-based study data, and no other data sources, to estimate prevalence by age group, sex, and race/ethnicity and then calculated state-level estimates by applying these summary estimates to each state's population distribution. This method may lead to inaccuracies because the population-based study data (while of high quality) were collected 8 to 36 years in the past from locally IMPORTANCE Globally, more than 250 million people live with visual acuity loss or blindness, and people in the US fear losing vision more than memory, hearing, or speech. But it appears there are no recent empirical estimates of visual acuity loss or blindness for the US.OBJECTIVE To produce estimates of visual acuity loss and blindness by age, sex, race/ethnicity, and US state.

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Purpose: To support survey validation efforts by comparing prevalence rates of self-reported and examination evaluated presenting visual impairment (VI) and blindness measured across national surveys.Design: Cross-sectional comparison.