[The prevalence of cataract in Doumen County, Guangdong Province]

To investigate the prevalence of cataract, cataract blindness and the cataract burden in population aged >or= 50 years in Doumen County.

5,759 individuals aged >or= 50 were identified from sampling units. The definition of cataract was the vision < 0.7 caused by lens opacity in either eye, among them the person whose vision in both eyes was < 0.1 was cataract burden and whose vision in both eyes was < 0.05 was cataract blindness.

The response rate was 92.76%. The prevalence of cataract, cataract blindness and cataract burden was 20.93%, 1.67% and 3.86%, respectively.

The huge community necessary for cataract surgery still remains as a great challenge in China.