Julie Omohundro I think WHO hasn't updated its stats.

http://www.aaojournal.org/article/S0161-6420(13)00902-0/abstract

I think that the growth rate of cataract is higher than advancement of technology

Nana Ryu I also think WHO hasn't updated the stats. It's unbelievable if the statistics remain the same after all these years.

John Varghese Julie O.: Thank you for sharing this article. Reading through this article I now believe that the the map showing cataract surgery rates in WHO website is not entirely wrong. Though they havent updated it; if you look at the bracket within which each nation's CSR is rated and the article you shared comes at par.
for ex: Acc to the article US, Nordic states and other developed nations show a rise in CSR rates & the WHO graph says the rate of CSR is developed nations is above 5000 per million.

Now I am more interested to know their study.
12 years and the figures has changed only by 1000's.

John Varghese Sanaz Yazdani: Depends on the macular degenrations and etiology of cataract person to person.

John Varghese Liu Nana: yes it is unbelievable; but now I am.more shocked comparing the article shared by Ms. Julie and WHO stats.

Hi John, you might be interested in this project: http://www.catacure.eu/
hopefully it will change stats in the future.

Julie Omohundro Here is a list of world health topics it covers: http://www.who.int/topics/en/
If you follow the cataract link, I think you will find a little data that is more current.

WHO is a public health organization, not a market research firm. Given the scope of its mission and limited resources, I was somewhat surprised to see it had any data at all on cataracts, which I don't think is on anyone's Top Ten (Hundred?) List of most pressing world health issues. There are millions of people out there, most of them children, who can count themselves lucky if they live long enough to develop cataracts.

Check out the Global Burden of Disease, but I am not sure they have data on actual operations.

John Varghese Julie O. The very reason why I said I am more interested in their study is for the fact the being a public health organization and covering information and stats of entire diseases prevailing in this planet. Their findings still stand accurate to a large extent even after 10 years. That was my point.

And yes, WHO is a public health organization and not a market research firm.Hence any laymen who do not have access to.such market research firms will rely on the data of WHO only; which to a large extent is correct. No debate on that.

Julie Omohundro John, I think the WHO stats, which are worldwide, augmented/updated with some local stats, would probably be the best way to go.

I would expect national health authorities, trade associations, and/or medical ophthalmology societies to be likely to have some statistics as well. Google Scholar is always worth a search. You have to pay for access to the full text of a lot of the articles, but a lot of them are free. Usually the abstract is available for free and sometimes has the information you need.