Tackling vision impairment in urban children

A study by LVPEI says school-going kids in urban areas more vulnerable

Hyderabad: School-going children in Hyderabad and other urban centres are more prone to vision impairment (VI) than their counterparts in districts because of their lifestyle. Children in urban centres spend a large amount of time looking at smartphones or tablets. A surge in online classes during pandemic-induced lockdowns, and lack of large open spaces in urban areas for outdoor recreation tend to worsen the situation for school-going kids in cities, ophthalmology researchers from LV Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI), in a recent study said.

The unique LVPEI study, titled ‘Initiative for Screening Children for Refractive Errors and other Eye Health Needs (I-SCREEN)’, said that the prevalence of vision impairment among children in Hyderabad is twice the average of the VIs among school children from rural districts of Telangana. The overall prevalence of vision impairment among school children in the State is at 1.1 percent, it said.

---

The I-SCREEN study of LVPEI, published in ‘Indian Journal of Ophthalmology’ (October 2023), was conducted in Mahabubnagar, Hyderabad, Nizamabad and Adilabad districts. A combination of factors including screen-time with smartphones, together with limited outdoor exposure, led to an increased prevalence of myopia and subsequent visual impairment among urban children, the LVPEI researchers said in the study.

A total of 7,74,184 children, including 3,98,596 boys and 3,75,588 girls, were covered in the study. “In this study, refractive errors were the major cause of VI among school children, which reflects the global picture of the refractive errors being the most common correctable/ treatable cause of VI among school children,” the study said.

Vision impairment (VI) can negatively impact the academic performance and social development of children and adolescents, resulting in poor overall development. In terms of disability-adjusted life years, disability caused by VI impacts a child more than an adult. Early identification of VI and its causes help in providing timely interventions and preventing its negative consequences, researchers said.

Such interventions might increase the quality-adjusted life years of vision-impaired children and reduce the economic burden on their families. The most common kind of medical conditions detected under the VI included refractive errors, myopia, amblyopia, etc.

To detect such visual impairments among children at a young age and take up treatment and corrective methods, the researchers in the study recommended ‘School vision screening programme’, which is a cost-effective approach for addressing these issues early.