Vision Loss Expert Group of the Global Burden of Disease StudyGBD 2019 Blindness and Vision Impairment CollaboratorsPesudovs, KonradLansingh, Van CharlesKempen, John H.Tapply, IanFernandes, Arthur G.Cicinelli, Maria VittoriaArrigo, AlessandroLeveziel, NicolasResnikoff, SergeTaylor, Hugh R.Sedighi, TabassomFlaxman, SethBikbov, Mukkharram M.Braithwaite, TasaneeBron, AlainCheng, Ching-YuDel Monte, Monte A.Ehrlich, Joshua R.Ellwein, Leon B.Friedman, DavidFurtado, João M.Gazzard, GusGeorge, RonnieHartnet, M. ElizabethJonas, Jost B.Kahloun, RimKhairallah, MoncefKhanna, Rohit C.Leasher, JanetLittle, Julie-AnneNangia, VinayNowak, Michael A.Peto, TundeRamulu, PradeepTopouzis, FotisTsilimbaris, MitiadisWang, Ya XingWang, NingliBourne, RupertBriant, Paul SvitilVos, TheoAbate, Yohannes HabtegiorgisAbdollahi, MohammadAbdollahi, MozhanAbebe, Ayele MamoAbiodun, OlumideAboagye, Richard GyanAbrha, Woldu AberheAbualruz, HasanAli, Hiwa AbubakerAbu-Gharbieh, EmanAburuz, SalahdeinAdal, Tadele Girum GirumAdane, Mesafint MollaAddo, Isaac YeboahAdnani, Qorinah Estiningtyas SakilahAfzal, Muhammad SohailAghamiri, ShahinAhinkorah, Bright OpokuAhmad, AqeelAhmad, SajjadAhmadi, AliAhmed, AymanAhmed, HaroonAlfaar, Ahmad SamirAli, AbidAli, Syed Shujait ShujaitAltaf, AwaisAmu, HubertAndroudi, SofiaAnguita, RodrigoAnil, AbhishekAnvari, SaeidAnyasodor, Anayochukwu EdwardAppiah, FrancisArabloo, JalalArafat, MosabAreda, DamelashArefnezhad, RezaAregaw, Brhane BerheAsgedom, Akeza AwealomAshraf, TahiraAthari, Seyyed ShamsadinAtinafu, Bantalem Tilaye TilayeAtout, Maha Moh’d WahbiAtreya, AlokAyatollahi, HalehAzzam, Ahmed Y.Babamohamadi, HassanBagherieh, SaraBahurupi, YogeshBaig, Atif AminBanik, BiswajitBardhan, MainakBasu, SauravBatra, KavitaBayileyegn, Nebiyou SimegnewBazvand, FatemehBeyene, Addisu ShunuBhagat, Devidas S.Bhagavathula, Akshaya SrikanthBhardwaj, PankajBhaskar, SonuBhatti, Jasvinder SinghBikbov, MukharramBineshfar, NiloufarBirck, Marina G.Bitra, Veera R.Braithwaite, TasaneeBurkart, KatrinBustanji, YasserButt, Zahid A.Caetano dos Santos, Florentino LucianoCámera, Luis AlbertoCarneiro, Vera L.A.Cenderadewi, MuthiaChandrasekar, Eeshwar K.Chattu, Vijay KumarChitranshi, NitinChopra, HiteshChu, Dinh-ToiCoberly, KalebCoelho, João M.Cruz-Martins, NatáliaDadras, OmidDai, XiaochenDas, SubasishDascalu, Ana MariaDashti, MohsenDastmardi, MaedehDemessa, Berecha HundessaDemisse, BiniyamDereje, DiribaDerese, Awoke Masrie AsratDervenis, NikolaosDevanbu, Vinoth Gnana ChellaiyanDo, Thanh ChiDo, Thao Huynh PhuongDos Santos Figueiredo, Francisco WinterDziedzic, Arkadiusz MarianEdinur, Hisham AtanEfendi, FerryEhrlich, Joshua R.Ekholuenetale, MichaelEkundayo, Temitope CyrusEl Sayed, ImanElhadi, MuhammedEmamian, Mohammad HassanEmamverdi, MehdiEtemadimanesh, AzinFagbamigbe, Adeniyi FrancisFahim, AyeshaFarrokhpour, HosseinFatehizadeh, AliFeizkhah, AlirezaFerro Desideri, LorenzoFetensa, GetahunFischer, FlorianForouhari, AliFoschi, MatteoFowobaje, Kayode RaphaelGaidhane, Abhay MotiramjiGandhi, Aravind P.Gebregergis, Miglas W.W.Gebrehiwot, MesfinGebremariam, BrhaneGerema, UrgeGhassemi, FaribaGhozy, SheriefGolechha, MahaveerGoleij, PouyaGoulart, Bárbara Niegia GarciaGuan, Shi-YangGudisa, ZewdieGupta, SapnaGupta, Veer BalaGupta, Vivek KumarHaj-Mirzaian, ArvinHalimi, AramHallaj, ShahinHamidi, SamerHarorani, MehdiHasani, HamidrezaHeyi, Demisu ZenbabaHoan, Nguyen QuocHolla, RameshHong, Sung HwiHosseinzadeh, MehdiHu, ChengxiHuang, John J.Huynh, Hong-HanIbitoye, Segun EmmanuelIlic, Irena M.Immurana, MustaphaIslam, Md. RabiulIslam, Sheikh Mohammed SharifulIwu, Chidozie DeclanJacob, LouisJairoun, Ammar AbdulrahmanJanodia, Manthan DilipkumarJayaram, ShubhaJindal, Har AshishJokar, MohammadJoseph, NitinJoshua, Charity EhimwenmaKadashetti, VidyaKalankesh, Laleh R.Kalhor, RohollahKamath, SagarikaKandel, HimalKantar, Rami S.Karaye, Ibraheem M.Kasraei, HengamehKaup, SoujanyaKaur, NavjotKaur, Rimple JeetKayode, Gbenga A.Khader, Yousef SalehKhajuria, HimanshuKhalilov, RovshanKhatib, Mahalaqua NazliKisa, AdnanKosen, SoewartaKoyanagi, AiKrishan, KewalKulimbet, MukhtarKumar, NithinKurmi, Om P.Lahariya, ChandrakantLan, TuoLandires, IvánLeasher, Janet L.Lee, MunjaeLee, Seung WonLee, Wei-ChenLim, Stephen S.Little, Julie-AnneMahajan, Preetam BhalchandraMaharaj, Sandeep B.Mahmoudi, AlirezaMahmoudi, RazzaghMalhotra, KashishMallhi, Tauqeer HussainMansouri, VahidManu, EmmanuelMarzo, Roy RilleraMaugeri, AndreaMcAlinden, ColmMebratu, WondwosenMekene Meto, TesfahunMeng, YangMersha, Abera M.Mestrovic, TomislavMinh, Le Huu NhatMisganaw, AwokeMishra, ManishMisra, SanjeevMohamed, Nouh SaadMohammadi, SoheilMohammed, MustaphaMojiri-forushani, HodaMokdad, Ali H.Molavi Vardanjani, HosseinMoni, Mohammad AliMontazeri, FatemeMoradi, MaryamMotappa, RohithMousavi, ParsaMulita, AdmirMurray, Christopher J.L.Naik, Ganesh R.Naik, GurudattaNargus, ShumailaNatto, Zuhair S.Nayak, Biswa PrakashNegaresh, MohammadNegash, HadushNguyen, Dang H.Nguyen, Phat TuanNguyen, Van ThanhNiazi, Robina KhanOkonji, Osaretin ChristabelOlagunju, Andrew T.Olatubi, Matthew IdowuOrdak, MichalOsuagwu, Uchechukwu LeviOtstavnov, NikitaOwolabi, Mayowa O.Padubidri, Jagadish RaoPandey, AshokPanos, Georgios D.Pardhan, ShahinaPark, SeoyeonPatel, JayPawar, ShrikantPeprah, PrincePetcu, Ionela-RoxanaPeyman, AlirezaPham, Hoang TranPourazizi, MohsenQuan, Nguyen KhoiRahim, FakherRahimi-Movaghar, VafaRahman, Mohammad Hifz UrRajaa, SathishRamasamy, Shakthi KumaranRamasubramani, PremkumarRanjan, ShubhamRashidi, Mohammad-MahdiRath, Rama ShankarRauf, Annisa UtamiRawaf, SalmanRayati Damavandi, AmirmasoudRedwan, Elrashdy Moustafa MohamedRoy, PriyankaPramanik, Koushik RoySaadatian, ZahraSabour, SiamakSaddik, BasemaSaeed, UmarSafi, SareSafi, Sher ZamanSaghazadeh, AmeneSharif-Askari, Fatemeh SahebSahebkar, AmirhosseinSahraian, Mohammad AliSakshaug, Joseph W.Saleh, Mohamed A.Samadzadeh, SaraSamodra, Yoseph LeonardoSamuel, Vijaya PaulSamy, Abdallah M.Saravanan, AswiniSelvaraj, SiddharthanSemnani, FarbodSenapati, SabyasachiSethi, YashendraSeyedi, Seyed ArsalanSeylani, AllenShaheen, Amira A.Shahid, SamiahShahwan, Moyad JamalShaikh, Masood AliSham, SunderShamim, Muhammad AaqibShannawaz, MohammedShashamo, Bereket BeyeneShayan, MaryamShittu, AminuShiue, IvyShivakumar, K.M.Shorofi, Seyed AfshinSibhat, Migbar MekonnenSiddig, Emmanuel EdwarSilva, Juan CarlosSingh, Jasvinder A.Singh, ParamdeepSkiadaresi, EiriniSolomon, YonatanSousa, Raúl A.R.C.Sreeramareddy, Chandrashekhar T.Starodubov, Vladimir I.Subramaniam, Mohana DeviSusanty, SriTabatabaei, Seyyed MohammadTaye, Birhan TsegawTeklay, GebrehiwotTemsah, Mohamad-HaniTerefa, Dufera RikituTicoalu, Jansje Henny VeraToma, Temesgen MohammedTsatsakis, AristidisTsegay, Guesh MebrahtomTumurkhuu, MunkhtuyaTusa, Biruk ShalmenoTy, Sree SudhaUbah, Chukwudi S.Umair, MuhammadUmar, Tungki PratamaValizadeh, RohollahVan den Eynde, JefWatson, Stephanie LouiseWonde, Tewodros EsheteWondimagegn, Guadie SharewXiao, HongYao, YaoNia, Iman YazdaniYiğit, ArzuYismaw, YazachewYon, Dong KeonYonemoto, NaohiroYou, YuyiYu, ChuanhuaZastrozhin, Mikhail SergeevichZhao, HanqingZiafati, MakanZielińska, MagdalenaZikarg, Yossef TeshomeZoladl, MohammadSteinmetz, Jaimie D.Bourne, Rupert2024-08-022024-08-022024-08Vision Loss Expert Group of the Global Burden of Disease Study., GBD 2019 Blindness and Vision Impairment Collaborators. Global estimates on the number of people blind or visually impaired by cataract: a meta-analysis from 2000 to 2020. Eye 38, 2156–2172 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41433-024-02961-1.1476-5454 (online)0950-222X (print)10.1038/s41433-024-02961-1http://hdl.handle.net/2263/97421DATA AVAILABILITY : Data sources for the Global Vision Database are listed at the following weblink http://www.anglia.ac.uk/verigbd. Fully disaggregated data is not available publicly due to data sharing agreements with some principal investigators yet requests for summary data can be made to the corresponding author.CHANGE HISTORY 16 July 2024 : A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41433-024-03161-7.BACKGROUND : To estimate global and regional trends from 2000 to 2020 of the number of persons visually impaired by cataract and their proportion of the total number of vision-impaired individuals. METHODS : A systematic review and meta-analysis of published population studies and gray literature from 2000 to 2020 was carried out to estimate global and regional trends. We developed prevalence estimates based on modeled distance visual impairment and blindness due to cataract, producing location-, year-, age-, and sex-specific estimates of moderate to severe vision impairment (MSVI presenting visual acuity <6/18, ≥3/60) and blindness (presenting visual acuity <3/60). Estimates are age-standardized using the GBD standard population. RESULTS : In 2020, among overall (all ages) 43.3 million blind and 295 million with MSVI, 17.0 million (39.6%) people were blind and 83.5 million (28.3%) had MSVI due to cataract blind 60% female, MSVI 59% female. From 1990 to 2020, the count of persons blind (MSVI) due to cataract increased by 29.7%(93.1%) whereas the age-standardized global prevalence of cataract-related blindness improved by −27.5% and MSVI increased by 7.2%. The contribution of cataract to the age-standardized prevalence of blindness exceeded the global figure only in South Asia (62.9%) and Southeast Asia and Oceania (47.9%). CONCLUSIONS : The number of people blind and with MSVI due to cataract has risen over the past 30 years, despite a decrease in the age-standardized prevalence of cataract. This indicates that cataract treatment programs have been beneficial, but population growth and aging have outpaced their impact. Growing numbers of cataract blind indicate that more, better-directed, resources are needed to increase global capacity for cataract surgery.en© The Author(s) 2024, corrected publication 2024. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.CataractVisually impairedSDG-03: Good health and well-beingArticle