The ability to see clearly is a fundamental part of daily life, yet many people experience vision challenges that require assistance. In the United States, vision health is a widespread concern, with a significant majority of the population relying on some form of correction to achieve optimal sight. The need for visual aids, such as glasses or contact lenses, reflects the common nature of refractive errors across all demographics.
The Overall Prevalence of Corrective Lens Use
A substantial portion of the adult population in the United States uses corrective lenses, including both glasses and contact lenses. Approximately 66 percent of adults utilize some form of vision correction. When looking specifically at prescription eyewear, which includes glasses, prescription sunglasses, and contact lenses, the figure rises slightly higher, with surveys indicating that around 68 percent of respondents use these items. Focusing specifically on the most traditional form of correction, about 63.7 percent of adult Americans wear prescription eyeglasses. This high percentage demonstrates that glasses remain the most common and accessible solution for managing refractive errors. The consistent need for these aids underscores the importance of routine eye examinations.
How Vision Correction Varies Across Age Groups
The percentage of Americans requiring vision correction changes dramatically across different age brackets, generally increasing with age. For American children between the ages of two and 17, approximately 25.3 percent use glasses or contact lenses. This early need is often due to conditions like nearsightedness, which frequently develops during school-age years.
The use of corrective lenses continues to climb through adulthood, with generational data providing a clearer picture of this trend. While roughly 37 percent of Gen Z and 39 percent of Millennials use glasses, the prevalence increases to 55 percent for Gen X and 67 percent for Baby Boomers. This significant jump is primarily due to the onset of age-related farsightedness.
The need for visual assistance becomes nearly ubiquitous in the senior population. Among Medicare beneficiaries aged 65 and older, a striking 92.4 percent report using glasses.
Common Conditions Requiring Corrective Lenses
The underlying medical reasons for wearing glasses or contacts are collectively known as refractive errors, which occur when the eye cannot focus light correctly on the retina. The most common condition is myopia, or nearsightedness, which affects nearly 30 percent of the U.S. population and causes distant objects to appear blurry. This error occurs when the eyeball is too long or the cornea is too steeply curved, making light focus in front of the retina.
Another frequent condition is hyperopia, or farsightedness, where the eye is either too short or the cornea is too flat, causing light to focus behind the retina and making nearby objects appear blurry. Astigmatism is also widely prevalent, affecting approximately one in three Americans. It results from an imperfectly curved cornea or lens, which distorts vision at all distances. The prevalence of astigmatism increases notably with age, rising from about 14.3 percent in those under 15 to about 67.2 percent in individuals over 65 years old.
For middle-aged and older adults, presbyopia is a virtually guaranteed refractive error that makes close-up tasks challenging. Presbyopia is caused by the natural hardening and loss of flexibility of the eye’s lens, making it difficult for the eye to focus on near objects.
Beyond Glasses: Contacts and Other Corrective Methods
When national statistics report the percentage of people using vision correction, they often combine users of glasses and contact lenses. While many people rely exclusively on glasses, a significant minority use contact lenses as their primary or alternative form of correction. Specifically, about 3 percent of adults use only contacts, and another 12 percent alternate between wearing glasses and contacts.
Refractive surgery, such as LASIK, represents another important method of correction. This procedure permanently reshapes the cornea, allowing light to focus correctly on the retina without the need for external aids. Individuals who have successful refractive surgery are typically no longer counted in the percentage of current corrective lens users. Since over 20 million people have undergone LASIK surgery since its availability, these individuals represent a population that has moved out of the count of those who wear glasses or contacts.