Abstract
Purpose :
To describe demographic, insurance status, and eye conditions of patients referred to a bimonthly comprehensive ophthalmology clinic run by volunteers at The Ohio State University (OSU) located in a metropolitan city of greater than a million population.
Methods :
This OSU volunteer ophthalmology clinic was established to increase eye care access for underinsured and uninsured people through the Physician Care Connections program, which is a volunteer charitable organization providing health care for vulnerable adults. A retrospective chart review was performed on patients examined in the bimonthly eye clinic between 9/2010 and 1/2020. Demographic and clinical data were reviewed. Data were summarized with counts, frequencies, and averages. Visual acuity was collected on the Snellen scale and converted to metric standard to categorize vision using the World Health Organization (WHO) distance vision impairment categories.
Results :
A total of 579 patients were examined in this clinic with an average age of 55.3 ± 14.8 years at the time of their eye examination with 60% female and 40% male. Self-reported race/ethnicity were: 4.8% Asian, 41.1% Black, 36.6% Hispanic, 0.3% Pacific Islander, 10.2% White, and 7.0% undeclared or other. Preferred language aside from English (32.6%) included: Arabic (2.4%), Nepali (0.1%), Somali (1.7%), Spanish (34.2%), and other (29.0%). Pre-existing diagnoses of diabetes mellitus was 34% and hypertension was 47%. For tobacco, 70% of patients reported “never smoker” history. Using the WHO vision categories, 76% had good vision, 16% had moderate vision impairment, and 8% had severe vision impairment with presenting visual acuity in the better seeing eye. Ocular conditions included: 64% with cataract, 15% with diabetic eye disease, 25% with glaucoma diagnoses, and 5% with macular pathology.
Conclusions :
Our OSU-based volunteer ophthalmology clinic was established to increase eye care access for underinsured and uninsured people, which is a major barrier to health care access. There are significant eye conditions including cataract, diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma and macular pathology. Within this population, 67.4% preferred non-English language. In this population of underinsured and uninsured people, there are concerns about racial and ethnic disparities in eye care and challenges to access health care.
This abstract was presented at the 2023 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in New Orleans, LA, April 23-27, 2023.