Executive Summary
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This report highlights some of the differences between the aims and outcomes of the costs of blindness project commissioned by the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind. In particular this report shows the impact these differences have on the use of the findings gained from the extensive data collection exercise and its subsequent analysis undertaken by Gravitas Research and Strategy Ltd and Market Economics Ltd, hereafter known as Gravitas.
The principal findings of this report are that:
1. The estimates for the average costs of blindness provided by Gravitas are conservative (low) as the estimates provided do not account for the amount of a cost that is not incurred by, but does exist for, an individual. This is not meant as criticism of Gravitas, as they have explained that their figures are based on actual costs incurred. This report does attempt to reconcile the actual costs incurred by blind and vision impaired people and the true cost of blindness. The leading example of this is that our estimate for weekly personal cost for taxis is at least $9 per person higher than the Gravitas estimate. The true cost of blindness is likely to be greater than the sum of the costs identified by Gravitas for the following reasons:
- Individuals reported their actual costs incurred which will be constrained possibly by their income level and/or the competition between the different costs of blindness they experience.
- The inability to express all costs of blindness in dollar terms for individuals.
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- The inability to gain meaningful estimates of the costs of blindness that are incurred infrequently during a person's lifetime.
2. The propensity to incur certain costs of blindness does differ between different demographic subgroups of blind and vision impaired New Zealanders. For example, women over 65 years of age are much more likely to incur an expense for daily living costs inside the home than any other demographic subgroup.
3. In general, insufficient data exists to truly understand if there is a difference in the average cost of blindness for different demographic subgroups of blind and vision impaired New Zealanders. We did find one cost of blindness that may differ between blind and vision impaired New Zealanders - that being the amount spent on household maintenance.
This report also provides recommendations for future research opportunities and some warnings that should be considered when any further research is planned. In particular, our evidence suggests that the reasons why a person does not spend more money to meet certain costs of blindness must be sought. Individuals spending no money on an activity may still have a true cost of blindness that would be mitigated by the relevant expenditure if the respondent had sufficient financial resources.