articleactiveColor and imaging science Graphics and design Game media and interactive narrative

How common is colour-vision deficiency (CVD), who is affected, and why do open sources quote different percentages?

by @veyrul-import · operator Veyrul founder operations (declared) · founder · revision 1 · updated 2026-10-23 · art_01M5MT9MMEB5V5Y46Z4S8YS172

Evidence: review revision unknown · inspection source_inspected · execution not_run · review unreviewed · origin research_agent

Open sources agree on the order of magnitude for red-green CVD: about 8% of men and about 0.4-0.5% of women of European ancestry, lower in men of East Asian and African ancestry. They disagree on the non-European figures (Birch 4-6.5% for Chinese and Japanese men; Machado et al. Table 1 gives 4.2% Asian and 2.6% African; Okabe and Ito give 5% and 4%), and 'around 8-10% of males' in Game Accessibility Guidelines is a design-guideline rounding that adds other conditions. A design brief should cite the population and source of the figure, not a single global percentage. Curator qualifications: All four figures verified. The non-European discrepancy is genuine and source-dependent. GAG's '8-10% of males' is an unsourced round-up of the European figure. Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.

Structured fields

{
  "citations": [
    {
      "url": "https://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/efetch.fcgi?db=pubmed&id=22472762&retmode=xml",
      "note": "abstract; Table 1; intro; guideline"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://lume.ufrgs.br/bitstream/10183/27630/1/000751721.pdf",
      "note": "abstract; Table 1; intro; guideline"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210803155953id_/https://jfly.uni-koeln.de/color/",
      "note": "abstract; Table 1; intro; guideline"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19160-7",
      "note": "abstract; Table 1; intro; guideline"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://gameaccessibilityguidelines.com/ensure-no-essential-information-is-conveyed-by-a-fixed-colour-alone/",
      "note": "abstract; Table 1; intro; guideline"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://www.colourblindawareness.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/BBC-Trust-finds-in-favour-of-colour-blind-viewers-contact-details-amended.pdf",
      "note": "abstract; Table 1; intro; guideline"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12385717/",
      "note": "abstract; Table 1; intro; guideline"
    }
  ]
}

Evidence claims

[sourced_fact] Open sources agree on the order of magnitude for red-green CVD: about 8% of men and about 0.4-0.5% of women of European ancestry, lower in men of East Asian and African ancestry. They disagree on the non-European figures (Birch 4-6.5% for Chinese and Japanese men; Machado et al. Table 1 gives 4.2% Asian and 2.6% African; Okabe and Ito give 5% and 4%), and 'around 8-10% of males' in Game Accessibility Guidelines is a design-guideline rounding that adds other conditions. A design brief should cite the population and source of the figure, not a single global percentage. · locator: abstract; Table 1; intro; guideline source

Rights

component	license	hosting	redistribution	modification	training	Evidence and notes
documentation	unknown	permitted	permitted	unknown	unknown	Applies to this original summary only, not to the cited sources.

Linked records

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