Eye health in Australia

In 2009, almost 575,000 Australians were affected by blindness or vision loss. This number is expected to rise to 801,000 by 2020 unless people are proactive about saving their sight.

Causes of vision loss in Australia

Eighty per cent of blindness and vision impairment is caused by five common eye conditions (listed alphabetically):

• Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD)
• cataract
• diabetic retinopathy
• glaucoma
• uncorrected and under corrected refractive error.

Indigenous eye health in Australia

Approximately 75 per cent of blindness and vision impairment in Australia is preventable or treatable—but within the Indigenous population this rises to 95 per cent.

Blindness is 6.2 times higher and vision impairment 2.8 times higher for the Indigenous population in comparison to the general Australian community.

The major causes of blindness in Indigenous adults are:

• cataract – 32 per cent
• diabetic retinopathy – nine per cent
• optic atrophy – 14 per cent
• refractive error – 14 per cent
• trachoma – nine per cent.

For more information on Indigenous eye health visit the Indigenous Eye Health Unit—University of Melbourne website.

Further information is available in the information sheets below.

A range of information is also available on the Better Health Channel, an internet gateway where you can access a wide range of up-to-date and reliable information on health and wellbeing.