 Medication errors and/or adverse drug events kill an estimated 100,000 persons annually and represent the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S. The first three are heart disease, cancer, and stroke. (1)
- There are more than 1 million blind people in the United States today, 1.8 million will be blind by 2020, and 3.4 million will suffer from impaired vision that could threaten their way of life. (2)
- There are 20.5 million Americans today affected by cataracts. (2)
- More than 90 million adults have a limited ability to read or understand instructions on prescriptions or medicine bottles. (3)
- People aged 16 or older that have low health-literacy skills consume more health-care services. (4)
- Additional health expenditures related to low health-literacy skills total about $73 billion (in 1998 health-care dollars): the same amount that Medicare pays for physician, dental, home health, prescription drug, and nursing home services combined. (4)
- Estimated annual cost of blindness to the federal government is $4 billion. (5)
- In 2005, the Department of Health and Human Services found that the most commonly identified factor that affects access to prescription drug information is age. (6)
- A recent National Eye Institute (NEI) sponsored study estimates that blindness or low vision affects 3.3 million Americans age 40 and over, and is projected to reach 5.5 million by the year 2020. (6)
- The NEI estimates that the costs associated with visual disorders and disabilities totaled $116.3 billion in 2003. (6)
- It has been reported that fewer than 30% of older adults take their medications properly. (6)
- Diabetes is the sole or contributing cause of blindness in about 86% of the eyes of people white type 1 diabetes, and in 33% of the eyes of people with type 2 diabetes. (7)
REFERENCES:
(1) JAMA;
1998; 279, 1200-5. IOM, November 1999
(2) National
Eye Institute
(3) Center for
Health Care Strategies, Inc. and National
Academy on an Aging Society
 "Low Health Literacy
Increases Expenditures," U.S. Medicine, May 1999
(4) National
Academy on an Aging Society
(5) Prevent Blindness America 1994
(6) Department of Health and Human Services, May 2005
(7) The Canadian Diabetes Association, 2002
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