GA Incidence and Prevalence

Incidence and Prevalence

GA is a leading cause of visual impairment affecting 5 million people worldwide. As the result of population growth and ageing, the numbers of people affected by AMD and GA are expected to increase considerably over the next few decades.  GA is responsible for approximately 20% of all cases of legal blindness in the United States and 26% of cases in the United Kingdom. With no approved treatments to prevent or slow its progression and the number of people affected expected to increase, GA represents a significant unmet medical need.

Many studies have been conducted reporting prevalence and/or incidence data for late- AMD (GA and neovascular AMD) in different countries and regions around the world. As the numbers of those impacted by AMD and GA are forecast to increase in the decades ahead, in line with population growth and ageing, it is increasingly important to gather current statistics on a national and regional basis to inform healthcare policy and research into the future.

It is also critical to collect data associated with the burden of AMD and GA, both from the perspective of the individual and society. In order to guide policy decisions appropriately, burden data must include both direct and indirect costs.

Data collection efforts should serve the needs of their two primary audiences: decision makers and researchers. Decision makers include planners, policy makers, and monitoring staff in governments, as well as global, regional, and national public health experts, funding agencies, and civil society organisations. These users need information about data sources and analysis methods, including key assumptions and limitations, in a way that is accessible without advanced training in statistics.  Researchers require a higher degree of detail about methods, so that they can fully understand and potentially reproduce studies and advance methods.