Mexican-Americans’ visual loss comparable to African-Americans’, study finds

BALTIMORE — The prevalence of uncorrected visual acuity impairment in Mexican-Americans living in the southwest is higher than has been reported in whites and is comparable to visual loss rates for African-Americans, according to data from the Proyecto VER study. The study suggests that almost three-quarters of people with visual acuity impairment would improve with optical correction, but that socioeconomic factors have been barriers to seeking correction.

Block groups of people in Tucson and Nogales, Ariz., were randomly selected with probability proportional to the size of the Mexican-American population aged 40 and older. People with visual acuity worse than 20/30 underwent refraction to determine best corrected vision.

The prevalence of presenting visual acuity worse than 20/40 was 8.2%, with uncorrected refractive error accounting for almost three-quarters of the impaired acuity. Uncorrected refractive error showed a strong association with age, fewer than 13 years of education, low acculturation index, lack of insurance coverage and not having visited an eye-care provider in more than 2 years. The prevalence of best corrected acuity worse than 20/40 increased from 0.3% in people between the ages of 40 and 49 to 18% in people at least 80 years old.

The study data is published in the March issue of Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science.