The prevalence of age-related maculopathy: The visual impairment project1☆,
Section snippets
Study population
A detailed methodology for the VIP has been published previously.16 Briefly, the stratified cluster sample was drawn from nine randomly selected pairs of adjacent census collector districts in urban Melbourne and four pairs of randomly selected adjacent census collector districts in four rural communities in Victoria. A door-to-door household census was conducted to identify all eligible persons, defined as those aged 40 years and older in the calendar year of the examination who had lived at
Results
The mean age of participants was 60.2 years (standard deviation [SD] = 12.9 years; range, 40–102 years), 55% were females (Table 1), and 35% were born overseas: British (9%), Eastern Europe (4%), Greece (6%), Italy (8%), and others (9%).
Discussion
Unlike previous published reports, the VIP provides prevalence data on ARM from a sample population that includes both urban and rural residential adults 40 years and older. In this study population, 0.68% of the participants had signs of AMD in one or both eyes. Neovascular AMD in at least one eye was seen in 0.39% and atrophic AMD in 0.27%. However, the most striking finding is the overall 59% prevalence of any ARM and 23% prevalence of AMD in those more than 90 years.
To allow comparison with
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The Visual Impairment Project was funded in part by grants from the National Health and Medical Research Council, Victorian Health Promotion Foundation, the estate of the late Dorothy Edols, Ophthalmic Research Institute of Australia, Ansell Ophthalmology Foundation, and Jack Brockhoff Foundation.
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Received December 30, 1999. Accepted March 27, 2000.