Time outdoors positively associates with academic performance: a school-based study with objective monitoring of outdoor time.

Background: To explore the relationship between outdoor time and academic performance among school-aged children.

Methods: This study was designed as a cross-sectional study. Data were derived from a school-based prospective children myopia intervention study (STORM).

Effect of Myopic Undercorrection on Habitual Reading Distance in Schoolchildren: The Hong Kong Children Eye Study.

Introduction: This study aimed to evaluate the habitual reading distance among non-myopic children and also myopic children with undercorrection and with full correction.

Methods: This was a population-based cross-sectional study with a total of 2363 children aged 6-8 years who were recruited from the Hong Kong Children Eye Study. Cycloplegic autorefraction, subjective refraction, habitual visual acuity, and best corrected visual acuity were measured.

Vision Screening in Children: The New South Wales Statewide Eyesight Preschooler Screening Program.

Purpose: The aim was to investigate universality of access, screening rate, and outcomes from the New South Wales (NSW) Statewide Eyesight Preschooler Screening (StEPS) over the period of 2009 to 2016.

Design: Cross-sectional, observational study.

Methods: The StEPS program provides vision screening to 4-year-old children residing in NSW and is administered within Local Health Districts (LHDs).

Time Outdoors in Reducing Myopia: A School-Based Cluster Randomized Trial with Objective Monitoring of Outdoor Time and Light Intensity.

Purpose: To evaluate the efficacy of time outdoors per school day over 2 years on myopia onset and shift.

Design: A prospective, cluster-randomized, examiner-masked, 3-arm trial.

Participants: A total of 6295 students aged 6 to 9 years from 24 primary schools in Shanghai, China, stratified and randomized by school in a 1:1:1 ratio to control (n = 2037), test I (n = 2329), or test II (n = 1929) group.

Time spent outdoors in childhood is associated with reduced risk of myopia as an adult.

Myopia (near-sightedness) is an important public health issue. Spending more time outdoors can prevent myopia but the long-term association between this exposure and myopia has not been well characterised. We investigated the relationship between time spent outdoors in childhood, adolescence and young adulthood and risk of myopia in young adulthood.

Independent Influence of Parental Myopia on Childhood Myopia in a Dose-Related Manner in 2,055 Trios: The Hong Kong Children Eye Study.

Purpose: To determine the effects on childhood myopia of parental myopia, parental education, children's outdoor time, and children's near work.

Design: Population-based cross-sectional study.

Methods: A total of 6,155 subjects in 2,055 family trios (1 child and both parents).

Rationale and protocol for the 7- and 8-year longitudinal assessments of eye health in a cohort of young adults in the Raine Study.

Introduction: Eye diseases and visual impairment more commonly affect elderly adults, thus, the majority of ophthalmic cohort studies have focused on older adults. Cohort studies on the ocular health of younger adults, on the other hand, have been few. The Raine Study is a longitudinal study that has been following a cohort since their birth in 1989-1991.

Association of Parental Myopia With Higher Risk of Myopia Among Multiethnic Children Before School Age.

Importance: Parental myopia is an important risk factor for preschool myopia in Asian children. Further investigation of the association between parental myopia and early-onset myopia risk in other racial/ethnic groups, such as African American and Hispanic white children, could improve understanding of the etiology and treatment of this condition.

Objective: To investigate the association of parental myopia with refractive error and ocular biometry in multiethnic children aged 6 to 72 months.

Prevalence, Characteristics, and Risk Factors of Moderate or High Hyperopia among Multiethnic Children 6 to 72 Months of Age: A Pooled Analysis of Individual Participant Data.

Purpose: To describe the prevalence, ocular characteristics, and associated risk factors of moderate to high hyperopia in early childhood.

Design: Pooled analysis of individual participant data from population-based studies.

Participants: Six- to 72-month-old multiethnic children who participated in 4 population-based studies of pediatric eye diseases.

IMI - Clinical Management Guidelines Report.

Best practice clinical guidelines for myopia control involve an understanding of the epidemiology of myopia, risk factors, visual environment interventions, and optical and pharmacologic treatments, as well as skills to translate the risks and benefits of a given myopia control treatment into lay language for both the patient and their parent or caregiver. This report details evidence-based best practice management of the pre-, stable, and the progressing myope, including risk factor identification, examination, selection of treatment strategies, and guidelines for ongoing management. Practitioner considerations such as informed consent, prescribing off-label treatment, and guides for patient and parent communication are detailed.

Myopia: is the nature-nurture debate finally over?

In the nineteenth century, the prevalence of myopia began to rise, and Cohn stressed the role of education. Later, based on twin studies, Sorsby argued that refraction was almost totally genetically determined. This became the dominant view.

The epidemics of myopia: Aetiology and prevention.

There is an epidemic of myopia in East and Southeast Asia, with the prevalence of myopia in young adults around 80-90%, and an accompanying high prevalence of high myopia in young adults (10-20%). This may foreshadow an increase in low vision and blindness due to pathological myopia. These two epidemics are linked, since the increasingly early onset of myopia, combined with high progression rates, naturally generates an epidemic of high myopia, with high prevalences of "acquired" high myopia appearing around the age of 11-13.

Environmental Factors and Myopia: Paradoxes and Prospects for Prevention.

The prevalence of myopia in developed countries in East and Southeast Asia has increased to more than 80% in children completing schooling, whereas that of high myopia has increased to 10%-20%. This poses significant challenges for correction of refractive errors and the management of pathological high myopia. Prevention is therefore an important priority.

EPIDEMIC OF PATHOLOGIC MYOPIA: What Can Laboratory Studies and Epidemiology Tell Us?

Purpose: To systematically review epidemiologic and laboratory studies on the etiology of high myopia and its links to pathologic myopia.

Methods: Regular Medline searches have been performed for the past 20 years, using "myopia" as the basic search term. The abstracts of all articles have been scrutinized for relevance, and where necessary, translations of articles in languages other than English were obtained.

Normative visual acuity in infants and preschool-aged children in Sydney.

Purpose: To provide population-based normative visual acuity (VA) by age, in children participating in the Sydney Paediatric Eye Disease Study aged 6 to <72 months.

Methods: Monocular VA was measured using the Amblyopia Treatment Study (ATS HOTV) protocol (24 to <72 months). Some children were also tested using linear ETDRS or HOTV logMAR VA charts (30 to <72 months).

Risk factors for incident myopia in Australian schoolchildren: the Sydney adolescent vascular and eye study.

Purpose: To examine the risk factors for incident myopia in Australian schoolchildren.

Design: Population-based, longitudinal cohort study.

Participants: The Sydney Adolescent Vascular and Eye Study (SAVES) was a 5- to 6-year follow-up of the Sydney Myopia Study (SMS).

Myopia and international educational performance.

Purpose: To analyse the relationship between myopia, educational performance and engagement in after-school tutorial classes.

Methods: Educational performance data and data on engagement in after-school tutorial classes were taken from the results of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Program in Secondary Assessment (PISA) reports for 2009, which tested educational outcomes in representative samples of 15 year-old school children from 65 jurisdictions. High prevalence of myopia (>70%) and low prevalence of myopia (<40%) locations were identified by systematic literature search.

Time outdoors and the prevention of myopia.

Recent epidemiological evidence suggests that children who spend more time outdoors are less likely to be, or to become myopic, irrespective of how much near work they do, or whether their parents are myopic. It is currently uncertain if time outdoors also blocks progression of myopia. It has been suggested that the mechanism of the protective effect of time outdoors involves light-stimulated release of dopamine from the retina, since increased dopamine release appears to inhibit increased axial elongation, which is the structural basis of myopia.

Prevalence of anisometropia and its association with refractive error and amblyopia in preschool children.

Aim: To determine the age and ethnicity-specific prevalence of anisometropia in Australian preschool-aged children and to assess in this population-based study the risk of anisometropia with increasing ametropia levels and risk of amblyopia with increasing anisometropia.

Methods: A total 2090 children (aged 6-72 months) completed detailed eye examinations in the Sydney Paediatric Eye Disease Study, including cycloplegic refraction, and were included. Refraction was measured using a Canon RK-F1 autorefractor, streak retinoscopy and/or the Retinomax K-Plus 2 autorefractor.

Prevalence and 5- to 6-year incidence and progression of myopia and hyperopia in Australian schoolchildren.

Purpose: To determine the prevalence, incidence, and change in refractive errors for Australian schoolchildren and examine the impact of ethnicity and sex.

Design: Population-based cohort study.

Participants: The Sydney Adolescent Vascular and Eye Study, a 5- to 6-year follow-up of the Sydney Myopia Study, examined 2760 children in 2 age cohorts, 12 and 17 years.

Patterns of myopigenic activities with age, gender and ethnicity in Sydney schoolchildren.

Purpose: To examine the patterns of myopigenic activity (high near work, low time outdoors) in children growing up in Sydney, Australia, by age, ethnicity and gender.

Methods: The Sydney Adolescent Vascular and Eye Study (SAVES) re-examined children from the two age cohorts (6 and 12 years at baseline) from the Sydney Myopia Study (SMS). At 5-6 year follow-up, 863 in the younger cohort and 1196 in the older cohort had complete refraction data.