There is a growing need to increase access to vision care

Home Vision Testing – a solution for the USA.

One of the growing health challenges the U.S. faces is insufficient access to vision care. Millions of people today do not have access to traditional eyecare. The toll that poor vision takes at both the personal level and national level is substantial, and the magnitude of the problem will increase without the provision of improved methods to access vision care services. This paper describes using home based vision testing to deal with this challenge.

Today the U.S. population stands at about 330 Million and it is increasing at a rate of about 3 Million persons/ year. Sixty percent of the U.S. population, about 200 million, need some form of vision correction. This percentage is growing as myopia is rapidly increasing in young persons and people are living longer. Today, about 15 million people, or about 7.5 % of the 200 million needing vision correction, in fact live without correction. About 12 million of those could achieve good vision through refraction correction, but do not wear glasses or contacts. This is a very solvable problem, but the current health system is not designed to deal with this portion of the population.

15 million people in the US are visually impaired

Figure 1 : Based on a JAMA 2006 article, estimated number of persons in 2023 living with untreated visual impairments.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/study-finds-most-americans-have-good-vision-14-million-are-visually-impaired

Moreover, the total number of in-office eye exams per year in the U.S. is estimated at around 100 million. Compared to the total population one can safely conclude that a large number of people in the U.S. do not see an eye doctor annually even though this is the recommendation of the American Optometry Association,  AOA. https://www.aoa.org/healthy-eyes/caring-for-your-eyes/full-picture-of-eye-health?sso=y

The way to improve access to eyecare is through tele optometry services and through home based self testing. Test Solutions that digital health companies such as EyeQue are developing will benefit many persons, and in turn help to preserve U.S. leadership in health and wellness technologies. To date the company has invested tens of millions of dollars over 7 years into developing at-home vision testing technology.

– John A. Serri, PhD CEO & Co-founder

“Home Vision Testing” highlights issues and how EyeQue products can help. Would you like to share your story? Contact us at hello@eyeque.com