Racial, Ethnic, and Socioeconomic Disparities in Glaucoma Onset and Severity in a Diverse Nationwide Cohort in the United States

Abstract

Black, Hispanic/Latino, and other minority participants are diagnosed with glaucoma at younger ages, and Blacks are more likely to be diagnosed with moderate-to-severe glaucoma. These findings validate prior population-based studies. Furthermore, we observed a gap in the use of diagnosis codes, as only 43% of participants had a specified severity stage in this national cohort. This may have implications for large-scale observational research concerning glaucoma severity, as electronic health records and claims databases typically lack other measures of disease progression, such as imaging and visual field data.