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Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Cause Exploration Prizes: Could New Technology Help Solve the Glasses Problem?, published by Open Philanthropy on July 12, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. This essay was submitted to Open Philanthropy's Cause Exploration Prizes contest and posted to the Forum with the author's permission. Summary of the problem There are 2.2 billion people in the world who are visually impaired. There are two main causes of visual impairment. The first is medical problems, such as cataracts or vitamin A deficiency, which require surgery or medical treatment to treat them. The second is refractive errors, which means that the eyes are healthy, but the person needs glasses in order to see clearly. Uncorrected refractive errors (URE) are the leading cause of visual impairment worldwide. In 2020, more than 1.1 billion people in the world were visually impaired simply because they did not have access to glasses, and this number is expected to rise to 1.8 billion by 2050. This essay will focus on addressing URE, barriers to providing glasses, and new technology that might greatly expand the scope of care. Refractive errors, such as myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism, and presbyopia, are easily corrected with glasses. Refractive error is an extremely common problem; 75% of American adults wear glasses or contact lenses for correction. In high-income nations, the incidence of visual impairment from uncorrected refractive errors (URE) is less than 10%, since most people have access to glasses through their medical insurance. However, the burden of visual impairment from URE is more than four times greater in low- and middle-income countries compared to high-income countries. In western, eastern and central sub-Saharan Africa, 80% of the population suffers with uncorrected refractive errors. While the global incidence of blindness has decreased in the past 30 years due to improvements in medical treatments of trachoma and river blindness, this has been offset by the increasing age of the population. There has been a shift from medical visual impairment to refractive visual impairment as the leading cause of disability. Presbyopia, which is the need for reading glasses or bifocals, develops in 100% of people by the age of 50. Without reading glasses or bifocals, people over age 50 cannot perform tasks requiring near vision, such as reading, removing pebbles from beans or rice, or spotting holes in their malaria bed net. There are 826 million severely impaired and 1.8 billion moderately impaired people who need, but do not have access to reading glasses, which would allow them to easily perform these tasks. This includes up to 94% of the population in some countries in Africa and Asia. (6, 19) Importance of solving the problem Disability URE is the number one global cause of disability.(4) According to the Global Burden of Disease 2013 study, the global burden of URE was 11.3 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). The number of DALYs increased 43% from 1990 to 2013. Highest DALYs (241 DALYs per 100,000) were found in low-income areas, including southeast Asia, eastern Mediterranean, and Africa. Women over the age of 40 had higher DALYs from URE compared to men and younger people. Older people had higher DALYs which increased with age. URE burden is inversely proportional to a country’s Human Development Index, so countries with the least-developed health and education provisions were more affected by URE.(5) Morbidity URE is not just about inability to work. Because vision is the dominant of the five senses, people fear blindness more than many lethal conditions such as cancer. Mobility and autonomy are usually dependent on vision. URE is a tremendous hurdle to education, literacy, workforce participation, and social connectedness. People with visual impairment are more likely to be u...