A Review of the Published Literature in Global Population-Based Studies of Childhood Blindness and Vision Impairment

ABSTRACT

Purpose

Reducing childhood blindness and vision impairment (BVI) remains a global health priority. Our purpose was to summarize the peer-reviewed literature to date on measuring and reporting childhood BVI using population-based surveys and vision examinations.

Methods

We conducted a scoping review of published studies that aimed to report BVI prevalence in children or studies that aimed to report BVI prevalence in the general population but which also included children. There were 201 articles identified for abstract review, and 86 studies were included in the final review.

Results

There were 52 studies (60%) that specifically aimed to investigate prevalence of blindness and/or vision impairment among child populations, while the remaining 34 studies aimed to study BVI in the general population but still reported data for age ranges that included children. The majority of researchers used the WHO criteria for blindness and vision impairment, sometimes with modifications. Age definitions for children varied considerably, with maximum cutoffs ranging from 3 to 20 years.

Conclusion

The available literature on childhood blindness indicates that while there has been substantial progress towards establishing an evidence base, more remains to be accomplished in terms of addressing gaps in understanding of the true prevalence and impacts of childhood blindness and vision loss. All studies in this review cited the need for improved vision care services, either for all ages or for the childhood years in particular.

Keywords:

• Child blindness
• child vision loss
• review
• global vision health
• global eye health
• child vision impairment

Disclosure statement

The authors report there are no relevant financial or non-financial competing interests, or conflicts of interest, to report.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/09286586.2023.2204149

Required statement

The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available as a supplementary table.

Additional information

Funding

No grant or any other funding source was received for this research. There are no commercial interests involved in this project. Ramona Bashshur is a full-time employee at Eversight, Michigan, USA.