Abstract
Purpose :
To assess the impact of vision impairment (VI) on health-related quality of life, specifically mental health, using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS).
Methods :
Data from each of the 50 states were extracted from the 2017 BRFSS dataset. Self-report of difficulty seeing with or without glasses was used to categorize VI vs non-VI. Self-report number of mentally unhealthy days was used to quantify quality of life. The number of unhealthy days was calculated for the VI and non-VI cohorts for each state. To assess the magnitude of any differences between the two populations, the ratios of the number of unhealthy days in the VI vs non-VI population were calculated for each state. Data were divided by demographic characteristics to compare age categories (19-39, 40-64, and 65+) and sex-specific differences.
Results :
The mean number of physically unhealthy days in the non-VI population ranged from 2.9 (Minnesota) to 4.8 (West Virginia). The mean number of unhealthy days in the VI population was higher than in the non-VI population in each of the 50 states (t-test, p<0.001), ranging from 5.1 days (South Dakota) to 11.5 days (North Carolina). The range in the ratio of unhealthy days in the VI vs the non-VI population ranged from 1.7 (South Dakota) to 3.1 (Montana). Visually impaired females reported a higher number of mentally unhealthy days than males (t-test, p<0.001), and the VI cohort aged 40-64 reported the highest number of mentally unhealthy days (median across 50 states = 10.5 mentally unhealthy days).
Conclusions :
The frequency of mentally unhealthy days represent a useful metric for quantifying health-related quality of life in the visually-impaired population. The BRFSS demonstrates a significantly higher number of mentally unhealthy days in the VI vs non-VI cohorts. The magnitude of healthy day difference between the VI vs non-VI cohorts demonstrates geographic variability, indicating a potential greater need for intervention strategies in states where lower quality of life in the VI population is highest.
This is a 2020 ARVO Annual Meeting abstract.