To investigate the causes and epidemiological characteristics of blindness and low vision in the previous Zhabei area of Shanghai and to provide information for precise health care for the vision disabled.

This was a hospital-based abservational study. Patients were prospectively recruited from August 2010 to March 2017 in the Shibei Hospital in the Jinan area. All patients had undergone full ophthalmic evaluations performed by trained ophthalmologists and blindness level was defined by WHO's criteria. Data were analyzed using χ² test.

A total of 1 682 patients were recruited for this study. The top 5 leading causes of blindness were high myopic retinopathy (36.38% with 90 cases of blindness and 522 cases of low vision), macular degeneration (13.56% with 38 cases of blindness and 190 cases of low vision), retinal detachment (9.39% with 38 cases of blindness and 120 cases of low vision), glaucoma (9.27% with 42 cases of blindness and 114 cases of low vision), optic nerve diseases (5.95% with 12 cases of blindness and 88 cases of low vision). There were significant differences in ratio of visual disability among the different neighborhood areas (P < 0.05).

The leading cause of blindness was high myopic retinopathy and there was a significant difference in ratio of visual disability among different neighborhoods in the Zhabei area.

visual diability; blindness; low vision; high myopic retinopathy