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Multicenter Study
. 2018 Jul 3;18(1):159.
doi: 10.1186/s12886-018-0829-8.

The increasing prevalence of myopia and high myopia among high school students in Fenghua city, eastern China: a 15-year population-based survey

Min Chen  1   2 , Aimin Wu  3 , Lina Zhang  1   4 , Wei Wang  1   2 , Xinyi Chen  1   2 , Xiaoning Yu  1   2 , Kaijun Wang  5   6
Affiliations
Multicenter Study

The increasing prevalence of myopia and high myopia among high school students in Fenghua city, eastern China: a 15-year population-based survey

Min Chen et al. BMC Ophthalmol. .

Abstract

Background: Myopia is the leading cause of preventable blindness in children and young adults. Multiple epidemiological studies have confirmed a high prevalence of myopia in Asian countries. However, fewer longitudinal studies have been performed to evaluate the secular changes in the prevalence of myopia, especially high myopia in China. In the present study, we investigated trends in the prevalence of myopia among high school students in Fenghua city, eastern China, from 2001 to 2015.

Methods: This was a population-based, retrospective study. Data were collected among 43,858 third-year high school students. Noncycloplegic autorefraction was used to determine refractive error, which was defined as low myopia, moderate myopia, high myopia and very high myopia according to the spherical equivalent from the worse eye of each participant. The prevalence of myopia was calculated and the annual percentage change (APC) was used to quantify the time trends. All analyses were conducted using the SPSS, Stata and Graphpad Prism software.

Results: From 2001 to 2015, the prevalence of overall myopia increased from 79.5% to 87.7% (APC =0.59%), with a significant increase of moderate myopia (38.8% to 45.7%, APC = 0.78%), high myopia (7.9% to 16.6%, APC = 5.48%) and very high myopia (0.08% to 0.92%, APC = 14.59%), while the prevalence of low myopia decreased from 32.7% to 24.4% (APC = - 1.73%). High myopia and very high myopia contributed the major part of the increasing trend of myopia prevalence (contribution rate 27.00% and 69.07%, respectively).

Conclusions: During the 15-year period, there was a remarkable increase in the prevalence of high and very high myopia among high school students, which might become a serious public health problem in China for the next few decades.

Keywords: Epidemiology; High myopia; High school student; Myopia; Prevalence.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Ethical approval was obtained from the Medical College of Zhejiang University and Fenghua people’s hospital Ethics Review Board. The study adhered to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Proportional distribution of refractive error among young adults in Fenghua city, eastern China, from 2001 to 2015
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Trends in myopia prevalence among young adults in Fenghua city, eastern China, from 2001 to 2015. (a) Total myopia group; (b) Non-myopia subgroup; (c) Low myopia subgroup; (d) Moderate myopia subgroup (e) High myopia subgroup and (f) Very high myopia subgroup
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
The prevalence of myopia including subgroups in male (a) and female (b) subjects in Fenghua city, eastern China, from 2001 to 2015
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Meta-analysis of the included studies evaluating the prevalence of myopia (a) and high myopia (b) in young adults, based on random-effects model
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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