Trends in the Burden of Vision Impairment in Saudi Arabia, 1990–2023: A Global Burden of Disease Study Analysis

Background

Vision impairment (VI) in Saudi Arabia is common, largely preventable or treatable, and increasingly linked to chronic disease rather than solely to the causes that have historically dominated blindness. Recent Saudi-specific evidence places adult VI prevalence at approximately 17% and blindness at under 2%, with diabetic retinopathy affecting roughly one in three Saudi adults with diabetes; however, no study has yet examined how this burden has trended nationally over time using the full 1990–2023 window made available by the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2023 round. This study quantified trends in the burden of VI in Saudi Arabia by severity, cause, sex, and age, and characterised the contribution of population ageing to the observed pattern.