Disparities in race, ethnicity, socioeconomics affect visual impairment in adolescents
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Adolescents who identified as Black or Mexican American and those from low-income families were more likely to report poor visual function and to present with worse visual acuity, according to a study.
“In this national sample, Black and Mexican American children 12 to 18 years of age were three times more likely to report a subjective experience of poor vision, and these adolescent children were twice as likely to have worse vision on examination compared to non-Hispanic white adolescent children,” study author Jean Adomfeh, MBA, told Healio/OSN. “In addition, adolescent children from low-income households were twice as likely to report a subjective experience of poor vision.”
In the cross-sectional study, data were collected from 2,833 participants 12 to 18 years old from the 2005 to 2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey; 14% of the adolescents were non-Hispanic Black, 11% were Mexican American, 63% were non-Hispanic white, and 11% identified as another race and ethnicity. Additionally, 19% of participants had a family income level below the poverty threshold, and 5% were not U.S. citizens. Each participant had a completed visual function questionnaire and eye examination.
The primary outcomes included subjective and objective measures of visual function to provide insight on visual health disparities among adolescent children in the U.S.
There was an increased amount of self-reported poor vision among Black (11.8%) and Mexican American (11.9%) adolescents compared with non-Hispanic white (3.8%) adolescents (both P < .001); a similar finding was found for those from low-income families (13.8%) compared with higher-income families (4.6%) (P<.001).
Additionally, Black (15.6%) and Mexican American (17.9%) participants were more likely to present with visual acuity worse than 20/40 in the better-seeing eye compared with non-Hispanic white (7.2%) participants (both P < .001). Non-U.S. citizens (21.3%) were also more likely to present with visual acuity worse than 20/40 in the better-seeing eye compared with U.S. citizens (9.7%) (P = .002).
The authors wrote that the results support “the importance of access to refractive correction in adolescence, a time when poor vision may affect academic performance, future employment and economic opportunities.”
“Eye health disparities already exist across race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status by adolescence,” Adomfeh said. “It would be wonderful to see more studies investigating the causes of these health disparities in the young and potential initiatives to close these gaps.”
Collapse
Adomfeh J, et al. JAMA Ophthalmol. 2022;doi:10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2022.3627.
Read more about
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts