These two open access papers mark the culmination of a 5 year project to update the Global Vision Database with the recently published population-based surveys of eye disease.
 
Bourne RRA, Adelson JD, Flaxman S, et al. Trends in Prevalence of Blindness and Distance and Near Vision Impairment over 30 years and contribution to the Global Burden of Disease in 2020, Lancet Global Health 2020, In press.
 
Adelson JD, Bourne RRA, Briant PS et al. Causes of blindness and­­ vision impairment in 2020 and trends over 30 years: evaluating the prevalence of avoidable blindness in relation to “VISION 2020: the Right to Sight”. Lancet Global Health 2020, In press.
 
Please contact us if you would like to be emailed about these papers, with a press release and embargoed papers in advance of their release. All VLEG members and funders will automatically receive this information.

VLEG data has been used by the World Health Organization as their core data source for their World Report on Vision which was published in October 2019. This was the first time the WHO has produced a World Report on Vision. Using VLEG data, it sets a global framework for eye care for the next decade. VLEG data has informed the development of a resolution which will has been passed at this year’s World Health Assembly, and it is underpinning work that is now underway with WHO to establish a set of global measures and indicators.

Access the report here.

• To be published in Acta Ophthalmologica on World Sight Day, 8 October 2020
• To be presented at 16th World Congress on Public Health 2020

Professor Rupert Bourne was awarded a Marie Curie Fellowship grant from the European Commission in 2018, with which to support Professor Nicolas Leveziel (University of Poitiers) in a collaborative project entitled “EUROVISION: Self-reported vision status and associated risk factors in Europe: prevalence and temporal change”. This project involved the analysis of data from more than 300,000 participants of the European Health Interview Survey. Workingwith colleagues in Eurostat, and other VLEG members the project team calculated prevalence rates of self-reported vision impairment and hearing impairment among this population-based sample of 28 European Union countries, and Iceland and Norway. The unique richness of the survey dataset also allowed the team to investigate factors relating to physical and mental health, lifestyle and socioeconomic status that were associated with vision and hearing impairment but also dual sensory impairment. This study offers valuable insights into the status of sensory impairment in the European population and heterogeneity within and between countries. The project team have been closely supported by the European Coalition on Vision.