Report on the Costs of Blindness Research Project
Commissioned by the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind
Prepared by Jonathan Godfrey and Deborah Brunning
Institute of Information Sciences and Technology, Massey University, Palmerston North
February 28, 2006

Read the Supplementary Analysis of the Cost of Blindness in New Zealand online by following the links below, or download the report. The report is available as a PDF, a Microsoft Word (.doc) file or as a large print PDF. A formatted braille (.brf) file will be available soon.

Supplementary Analysis of the Costs of Blindness (.pdf, 534.8 kB)
Supplementary Analysis of the Costs of Blindness (.doc, 619.5 kB)
Supplementary Analysis of the Costs of Blindness (large print) (.pdf, 472.9 kB)

The Cost of Blindness in New Zealand

Everyone involved in the blindness community knows that being blind or vision-impaired is expensive for individuals, families and society - page in actual costs, time costs and opportunity costs.

But determining the cost of blindness is like asking how long a piece of string is. No-one anywhere in the world has come up with the perfect, undisputed research on the cost of blindness. It is just too complex.

Against that backdrop, we are delighted to make public the most comprehensive research ever done in New Zealand on the Cost of Blindness. This research was conducted by Gravitas Research and Strategy Ltd and Market Economics Ltd. Further analysis was done by Dr Jonathan Godfrey, Lecturer in Statistics, Massey University, and graduate student Deborah Brunning. Both reports are available on our website and in accessible formats through our library.

As I mentioned above, no research on the cost of blindness is perfect. Budget constraints meant our research included interviews with 200 of our approximately 11,500 members. Because of this relatively small sampling, care must be taken in "over-interpreting" the results, or extrapolating them onto other groups. Total figures in the "Gravitas" report cannot be used to derive a meaningful average cost per individual blind person - the range of actual incurred costs is simply too wide. Finally, the Gravitas research focuses on actual costs of blindness, not opportunity costs.

The RNZFB and the Association of Blind Citizens (NZ) Inc will use this ground-breaking research to inform Government and other stakeholders. It is our fervent hope that others build on this research over time, so that the world can improve its understanding of the myriad and enormous costs of the unique disability that is blindness.

Paula Daye
CEO
Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind

Table of Contents

Executive Summary - page 2

1. Introduction - page 5
1.1 Background - page 5
1.2 Authors' credentials - page 5
1.3 Scope of the Report - page 6
1.4 Terms used in this report - page 7

2. A model for the cost of blindness - page 10

3. Limitations of this and the Gravitas report - page 13
3.1 Timeliness - page 14
3.2 Sample Size and Associated Limitations - page 14
3.3 Subdividing the population - page 19
3.4 Correlation - page 19

4. Future research opportunities and warnings - page 22
4.1 Employment of RNZFB members - page 24
4.2 Equipment and other infrequent expenditure items - page 27
4.3 Analysis of household incomes for working-age members - page 28
4.4 Constraints on costs associated with total income - page 29

5. Analysis of the personal taxi costs incurred by RNZFB members - page 32
5.1 Are there differences in cost for different subgroups? - page 34
5.2 Is Annual Household Income a significant factor? - page 42
5.3 Propensity to incur personal taxi costs taking affordability into consideration. - page 44

6. Analysis of the personal costs of daily living incurred by RNZFB members - page 51
6.1 Costs for five daily living tasks combined - page 51
6.2 Grounds maintenance costs - page 52
6.3 Home maintenance costs - page 54

7. Reconciling incurred costs with the true cost of blindness - page 57
7.1 Reconciling true and incurred personal taxi costs - page 59
7.2 Reconciling true and incurred personal taxi costs ignoring the known censoring - page 62
7.3 Reconciling true and incurred daily living costs - page 65
7.4 Conclusion - page 68