Cataract Incidence in Sub-Saharan Africa: What does Mathematical Modeling tell us about Geographic Variations and Surgical Needs?

Abstract

This is important evidence of significant variation in the incidence of cataract within Sub-Saharan Africa. The variation may be related to genetic or cultural variations on the continent and has important implications for planning services.

Impact of systematic capacity building on cataract surgical service development in 25 hospitals

“…Despite widely diverse population density, disease prevalence, and eye care infrastructure [13, 14] the capacity building intervention show a substantial increase in cataract surgical volume by year 4 in Africa (164%) Asia (66%) and Latin America (136%).…”

“…This reflects improvement in a range of internal hospital features including training, clinical protocols, patient flow within the hospital and operating room, and reallocating less-skilled tasks from the ophthalmologist to the rest of the eye care team [15]. Surgical productivity is also dependent upon the burden of disease in the population and there is strong evidence that the incidence of cataract (age and sex adjusted) in many African populations is two to four times lower than in other populations [14]. …”

Cataract Surgical Rate and Socioeconomics: A Global Study

“…13,22,23 To understand and evaluate the possible relationships between the CSR and economic development, we require data from two domains: CSR and economic indicators in each country. The trend of CSR over time in some regions has been explored, for example, in the work of Lewallen et al [24][25][26] Although this is essential for informing health policy and strategies, global variations remain unclear. 21 To address this information deficit, this study uses available CSR and economic data globally over the past decade (2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014) to explore the trend of CSR in each region over time, and identify associations between a country's economy (gross domestic product per capita [GDP/P]; gross national income per capita, [GNI/P]) and CSR.…”

Avoidable Waste in Ophthalmic Epidemiology: A Review of Blindness Prevalence Surveys in Low and Middle Income Countries 2000–2014

“…Ophthalmic epidemiology has already seen the benefits of data sharing in syntheses to estimate global blindness 9,12 and the incidence of vision-impairing cataract. 20,21 Another benefit of data sharing is the improvement in data quality that occurs when it is known it will ultimately be shared. 22 The discrepancies we identified between the datasets and published reports (Table 3) indicate the need for quality improvement in reporting of information.…”