Visual acuity of urban and rural adults in a coastal province of southern China: the Fujian Eye Study.

Aim: To evaluate the vision status and sociodemographic associations of visual acuity (VA) in an urban and rural population in a coastal province of southern China.

Methods: The Fujian Eye Study, a population-based cross-sectional study, was performed from May 2018 to October 2019. Totally 10 044 participants over 50 years old from all nine cities in Fujian Province were enrolled, and underwent a questionnaire and a series of standard physical and ocular examinations. VA was measured by E Standard Logarithmic Visual Acuity Chart (GB 11533-1989). Data was double entered with EpiData v3.1 for data collation and Stata/SE statistical software v15.1 was used to analyze the data.

Results: Totally 8211 (81.8%) participants were finally included and were divided into urban populations (4678 subjects), rural populations (=3533), coastal residents (=6434), and inland residents (1777 subjects); 4836 participants were female. The mean age was 64.39±8.87y (median 64y; range 50-98y). The mean presenting VA was 0.61±0.30 (0.23±0.27 logMAR), and the mean best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) was 0.82±0.28 (0.08±0.19 logMAR). In the multiple regression analysis, BCVA was significantly correlated with several socioeconomic and biologic factors, including age (<0.001), education level (<0.001), income (=0.005), rural residency (<0.001), inland residency (=0.001) and refractive error (<0.001), while sex (=0.194) was independent with BCVA.

Conclusion: Accessible services and eye health policies targeting the elderly, people with high myopia and people living in rural or inland areas are needed.