Measuring vision loss beyond blindness: a severity transition in an ageing world
Henry Bair · 2026
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Description
Henry Bair argues that global eye health has undergone a severity transition, not simply a victory over blindness. Among adults over fifty, age-standardised blindness fell substantially between 1990 and 2020, yet moderate and severe damage barely moved and absolute numbers of impaired people rose steeply.
Blindness-centred metrics miss how many years people live in each severity state, so the essay reframes the pattern through morbidity-transition theory: blindness recedes while milder damage persists and grows as groups age. The burden falls hardest where eye-care systems are weakest, demanding metrics and services tuned to moderate damage, not blindness alone.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Henry Bair |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 11 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |