Contents

• 6.1 Summary

Summary of Chapter 6

The total economic cost of vision impairment and blindness includes two components; actual financial costs and the economic valuation of the burden of disease.

The financial cost includes direct health care costs, productivity losses, informal care costs and deadweight welfare losses. It is estimated that the total financial cost of vision impairment and blindness in the ROI in 2010 was €386.1 million. The total cost is projected to rise to €419.7 million by 2015 and €449.0 million by 2020. Direct health care costs accounted for a third of the total financial costs of vision impairment and blindness.

The burden of disease includes the economic value of DALYs from disability and premature mortality due to vision loss. This was valued at €1.8 billion in 2010, which is projected to rise to nearly €2.0 billion by 2015 and €2.2 billion by 2020. The majority of the burden of disease was due to years of healthy life lost due to disability.

Overall, the total economic cost of vision impairment and blindness in the ROI in 2010 was estimated to be €2.1 billion in 2010. This is projected to rise to €2.4 billion by 2015 and €2.7 billion by 2020. The burden of disease comprised over 80% of the total economic cost of vision impairment and blindness.

This chapter sums the total economic costs of VI and blindness presented in the preceding sections, including direct health care costs, indirect costs, and the monetary value of the disease burden. It therefore presents the total cost of VI and blindness in the ROI disaggregated by economic category.