- 80% of all blindness is preventable or curable.
- Approximately 2.5 million people in the U.S. are “legally blind”.
- The WHO (World Health Organization) estimates that in 2002 there were 161 million visually impaired people in the world (about 2.6 percent of the total population).
- In the United States today, it is estimated that only 10% of blind children are taught Braille.
- Worldwide some 180 million people are blind or visually disabled.
- Just over 7,000 Americans use dog guides.
- People in developing countries represent ninety percent of the world’s blind population.
- 19% of persons 70 years of age and older had visual impairments.
- In California, over 13 million people are age 40 or over, and 356,000 are visually impaired or blind.
- People with diabetes are twenty five times more likely to become blind than people without diabetes.
- Nearly one in 5 blind adults (19 percent) lives in poverty.
- Blind adults are less well educated than the general population.
- The expression "blind leading the blind" refers to incapable people leading other incapable people.
- Some sports have been invented or adapted for the blind such as goalball, association football, cricket, and golf.
- People with vision impairments have participated in the Paralympic Games since the 1976 summer Paralympics in Toronto.
According to WHO estimates, the most common causes of blindness around the world in 2002 were:
1. cataracts (47.9 percent),
2. glaucoma (12.3 percent),
3. age-related macular degeneration (8.7 percent),
4. corneal opacity (5.1 percent),
5. diabetic retinopathy (4.8 percent),
6. childhood blindness (3.9 percent),
7. trachoma (3.6 percent)
8. onchocerciasis (0.8 percent).
