Journal article
Prevalence and associations of presenting near-vision impairment in the Australian National Eye Health Survey
S Keel, J Foreman, J Xie, HR Taylor, M Dirani
Eye Basingstoke | NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP | Published : 2018
DOI: 10.1038/eye.2017.317
Abstract
PurposeTo describe the prevalence and associations of presenting near vision impairment (NVI) in Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.MethodsA sample of 3098 non-Indigenous Australians (aged 50-98 years) and 1738 Indigenous Australians (aged 40-92 years) living in 30 randomly selected Australian sites were examined as part of the population-based National Eye Health Survey (NEHS). Binocular presenting NVI was defined as near vision worse than N8 (20/50).ResultsIn total, 4817 participants (99.6% of the total sample, comprising 3084 non-Indigenous Australians and 1733 Indigenous Australians) had complete data on near visual acuity. The overall weighted prevalence of presenting NVI was 21...
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Funding Acknowledgements
The National Eye Health Survey was funded by the Department of Health of the Australian Government, and also received financial contributions from the Peggy and Leslie Cranbourne Foundation and Novartis Australia. The funding organizations played no role in the design and conduct of the study. In-kind support was received from our industry and sector partners, OPSM, Carl Zeiss, Designs for Vision, the Royal Flying Doctor Service, Optometry Australia and the Brien Holden Vision Institute. We specifically acknowledge OPSM, who kindly donated sunglasses valued at $130 for each study participant. The Centre for Eye Research Australia receives Operational Infrastructure Support from the Victorian Government. The Principal Investigator, Dr Mohamed Dirani, is supported by a NHMRC Career Development Fellowship (#1090466). The PhD student, Joshua Foreman is supported by an Australian Postgraduate Award scholarship. The Centre for Eye Research Australia (CERA) and Vision 2020 Australia wish to recognise the contributions of all the NEHS project steering committee members (Professor Hugh Taylor, Dr Peter van Wijngaarden, Jennifer Gersbeck, Dr Jason Agostino, Anna Morse, Sharon Bentley, Robyn Weinberg, Christine Black, Genevieve Quilty, Louis Young and Rhonda Stilling) and the core CERA research team who assisted with the survey field work (Joshua Foreman, Pei Ying Lee, Rosamond Gilden, Larissa Andersen, Benny Phanthakesone, Celestina Pham, Alison Schokman, Megan Jackson, Hiba Wehbe, John Komser and Cayley Bush). Furthermore, we would like to acknowledge the overwhelming support from all collaborating Indigenous organisations who assisted with the implementation of the survey, and the Indigenous health workers and volunteers in each survey site who contributed to the field work.