Global burden of paediatric vision impairment: a trend analysis from 1990 to 2017

To assess the trend of paediatric visual impairment and its disparities by year, sex, age and national socioeconomic levels using disability-adjusted life years (DALYs).

It is a retrospective analysis of data from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2017. Global and national DALY numbers and rates of vision impairment in three paediatric age groups of 1-4 (preschool children), 5-9 (school children) and 10-14 years (teenagers) years were obtained from the GBD 2017 database. The socioeconomic indices for 195 countries were derived from international open databases. Main outcome measures were comparison of DALYs due to paediatric vision impairment in different age groups by socioeconomic indicators in 2017 and analysis of the trend from 1990.

The global prevalence of distance and/or near vision impairment for 1-14 years was 2.8% (95% uncertainty interval (UI): 2.5-3.1) in 2017. The highest DALYs for distance and/or near vision impairment [number=589.93 thousands (95%UI: 367.71-933.29), rate = 92.72 (95%UI: 57.79-146.68)] were observed in teenagers. DALY rate of distance and/or near vision impairment was not associated with socioeconomic indicators, however, DALY rate of refractive disorders had positive correlation with national socioeconomic development. The global trends of DALY numbers in distance and/or near vision impairment as well as refractive and other causes remained stable from 1990 to 2015 (0.128 ≤ P ≤ 0.738), however, DALY rates had a statistically significant trend of reduction in all paediatric age groups (0.003 ≤ P ≤ 0.024).

The global health burden of paediatric vision impairment decreased from 1990. Refractive, near vision impairment and other causes were associated with socioeconomic development.