Abstract
Purpose:
To estimate gender- and age-specific prevalence of myopia in a population-based sample of adult Chinese Americans in the city of Monterey Park, California.
Methods:
4582 study participants underwent a non-cycloplegic automated refraction or a standardized subjective refraction if presenting visual acuity was worse than 20/20. The gender- and age-specific prevalence of spherical equivalent myopia in phakic eyes was calculated. Comparisons of prevalence rates between CHES and other eye studies in persons of Chinese ancestry as well as Latinos in Los Angeles were performed using chi square tests. Prevalence of anisometropia was calculated.
Results:
Refractive error data was present in 4212 of 4582 participating Chinese Americans. The overall prevalence of myopia (≤-1.0 D) calculated based on worse eye was 34.1% (95% CI, 32.7%-35.6%), and high myopia (≤-5.0 D) was 9.4% (95% CI, 8.5%-10.3%). The overall prevalence of myopia calculated based on better eye was 25.8% (95% CI, 24.5%-27.1%), and high myopia was 6.1% (95% CI, 5.4%-6.8%). The overall prevalence of myopia calculated based on the right eye was 30.0% (95% CI, 28.6%-31.4%), and high myopia was 7.9% (95% CI, 7.1%-8.7%). The prevalence of myopia and high myopia was lower in older men and women compared to younger participants. There was no statistically significant difference in the prevalence of myopia and high myopia between men and women after adjusting for age (p=0.12 and 0.54 for myopia and high myopia respectively). Of 1437 participants who had myopia in the worse eye, 78.2% of them wore glasses. Anisometropia was present in 21.4% (95% CI, 20.1%-22.6%) of the participants who had refractive error data on both eyes. There was no age-associated trend in the prevalence of anisometropia in men and women; also there was not statistically significant difference between men and women after adjusting for age (p=0.77).
Conclusions:
These data provide the first population based estimates of myopia in Chinese Americans. The age-adjusted prevalence of myopia and high myopia in Chinese Americans is higher than the age-adjusted prevalence of Chinese from studies outside of the US including the Handan Eye Study, the Liwan Eye Study and the Tanjong Pagar Eye Study. In addition, the age-adjusted prevalence of myopia and high myopia is significantly higher than the age-adjusted prevalence in Latinos.
Keywords: 605 myopia •
676 refraction •
463 clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: prevalence/incidence