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Greater exposure to outside light may reduce myopia in children
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BUSAN, Korea — A study showed that education level and academic achievement increased the odds of myopia in children, especially when academic activities were conducted indoors, a clinician said here.
“You need to get the message to parents and to children that [academic activity] needs to be balanced with time spent outside. And time spent outside might also need to be encouraged by ready access to safe and attractive green space, irrespective of the population density,” Kathryn A. Rose, PhD, associate professor at the University of Sydney, Australia, said at APAO/SOE 2012.
Prof. Rose presented results from the Sydney Myopia Study, a cross-sectional, stratified, random cluster sample of more than 4,000 school children in Sydney. The study used cycloplegic refraction.
Urban density and housing are also associated with myopia in children and may be confounded by socioeconomic factors, Prof. Rose said. For instance, housing in the more expensive parts of Sydney tends to be smaller, suggesting that smaller space does not always mean lower-cost housing.
“[Those factors] may also be a surrogate for a number of different risk factors for myopia and these need to be further unraveled,” she said.
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