NewChildren from China's wealthier families pay price of poorer eyesight
Study finds nearsightedness twice as common in middle-income children compared with those of poorer families, with girls more likely than boys to be nearsighted.
A study involving 20,000 children in China shows that poor youngsters are far less likely to be nearsighted than their wealthier peers.
Nearsightedness, or myopia, was twice as common in the middle-income province of Shaanxi – where students have greater access to books that require close-up focusing – compared to the poorer neighbouring province of Gansu, suggests research published today in Ophthalmology, the journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology.
Researchers said the findings were based on one of the largest population-based studies ever conducted on nearsightedness in children.
The scientific team included Chinese government agencies and universities and experts from Stanford University in California.
They tested the vision of fourth and fifth grade students, those in the nine- to 11-year-old range.
More than 9,400 students in the study were in Shaanxi, and more than 10,100 students in Gansu, the second poorest province in China.
Nearly 23 per cent of youths in Shaanxi have clinically significant myopia, nearly twice that of the lower-income province of Gansu, where 12.7 per cent had myopia, the study said.