February 2023 Virtual event Presentation

Mitigation in Urban Environment for Myopia Epidemic and Promoting Public Awareness

By Dr. Kai Yip Choi BSc (Hons) Optom, PhD, FAAO, Hong Kong & Prof. Seang-Mei Saw MBBS, MPH, PhD, FAMS, Singapore

About the presentation

The myopia epidemic has been sweeping the world in recent years, particularly in Southeast Asia. Learn how environmental exposures are critical in myopia development and get introduced to recent studies showing how outdoor environments are inhibitors for myopia development. Hear how optimal clinical care, social and environmental interventions can be alternatives that aid in alleviating the myopia epidemic, such as parent focused pediatric eyecare promotion campaign by Kai Yip Choi a Research Assistant Professor at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University School of Optometry and Seang-Mei Saw, Distinguished Wallace Foulds Professor at the Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, Co-Chair (Biomedical) of the NUS Institutional Review Board, and Head of the Myopia Unit at Singapore Eye Research Institute.

FAQ from the event

Is time outdoors more influential on onset of myopia or the progression of existing myopia?

The evidence we have is primarily related to onset. We can delay or prevent the onset for children for a couple of years; this is shown in a large study including 2,000 children in China. When it comes to progression of myopia, some studies have show an effect, however, the evidence is particularly strong with regard to onset.

How do you work with governmental institutions and schools to increase time spent outdoors?

We show the link between a child’s overall health from time spent outdoors, such as decreased risk of obesity and reduced risk of stress and mental health issues, and their academic performance. Showing the link between outdoor time and academic performance is something we hope to investigate further.

We actually found it quite difficult to promote more outdoor time; parents in Hong Kong are rather nervous about anything that can impact tehir children’s academic grades in a negative fashion. We therefore try to also work on how to modify the indoor environment, for example the lighting during near work, to influence the development of myopia.

How do you take into consideration the age of myopia onset and does the earlier school start in places such as Hong Kong and Singapore influence the development of myopia?

The average age of myopia onset in Singapore is 8.5 years, however, we have conducted a study showing that 10% of pre-school children are already myopic and 28% of children during the first year of school are myopic so we need interventions alrady at this age.

It is much more serious if children during their pre-school years develop myopia compared to later in life as there is a direct link between age of onset and the severity of myopia.

Studies in Hong Kong show that education in regular schools involves significant amounts of near work whereas education in ‘International schools’, as we call them in Hong Kong, where there is less near work time also has a lower incidence rate of myopia.

The fact that screen time is increasing, does that negate the amount of time a child may spends outdoor time?

We have not found that more outdoor time means less screen time; children who spent more time outdoors did not read or write less. In fact, children who spend significant amount of time outdoors also read and wrote a lot, and then you would have children who neither read and wrote much and also did not spend much time outdoors.

Kai Yip & Seang-Mei's
recommended resources

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