Community-based Prevention and Control of Myopia in School-age Children: an Explorative Study

Background Myopia is an important cause of visual impairment and has become a public health problem all over the world. In China, myopia has a high incidence rate and age of onset of which is becoming younger. There is no clinical method to reverse myopia in children. Therefore, it is important to standardize the screening for ametropia to realize early detection and intervention of myopia. As a primary care institution, a community health center may accurately understand the prevalence of myopia in teenagers in its service coverage area. So giving full play to the role of community health center has important practical significance for the containment of myopia in children and adolescents. Objective To explore the feasibility of community-based prevention and control of myopia in school-age children. Methods A cohort study was conducted. The information about visual acuity and refractive status of students in a primary school in Beijing's Chaoyang District from September 2019 to September 2021 were collected for statistical analysis, among which four groups of data in September 2019, September 2020, March 2021 and September 2021 were finally included according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, with a total of 5 558 records. Then, based on the data, an electronic students' refractive database was established, with uncorrected visual acuity, corrected visual acuity, refractive status (power of a spherical lens, power of a cylindrical lens, axis) , prevalence of wearing glasses or orthokeratology incorporated. The warning levels of vision screening were set to be 0, 1, 2 and 3 from low to high. The visual change, visual warning level, spherical equivalent (SE) of students were compared by grade. The visual changes and warning level evolution at different times were compared at the individual level. Corresponding interventions were implemented for different warning levels, and the intervention results were analyzed and discussed. Results There were statistically significant differences in uncorrected distance visual acuity (UDVA) among students by grade (F=100.413, P