Located in the middle region of China, Changsha is the capital city of Hunan province with a population of 7.9 million (www.changsha.gov.cn). In order to estimate and evaluate the prevalence of reduced VA in primary and secondary school students of Changsha, Changsha Eye Health of Children and Adolescents Screening Program was initiated by Changsha Aier Eye Hospital with the agreement of local health government. In this program, 250,980 students from 239 schools in 6 districts of Changsha have been screened.
According to the statistical results, it is obvious that the prevalence of reduced VA, 51.8%, is rather high in Changsha. In a previous study that investigated the prevalence of reduced VA in ethnic Han students, similar results were seen, reporting a prevalence of reduced VA of 66.6%, the major cause suspected being myopia13. In our study also, most participants with reduced VA have a normal UCNVA yet an abnormal UCDVA, therefore myopia can be suspected as the main refractive error. Rise in the prevalence of myopia with age was confirmed by a study carried out in Qingdao city, which is in accordance with our findings since a statistically significant difference in prevalence was observed among grades (P < 0.05)14. Another epidemiological study in 6 provinces of China reveals that the prevalence of myopia was 35.8% in age group 6–8 years, 58.9% in age group 10–12 years, 73.4% in age group 13–15 years and 81.2% in age group 16–18 years15. These age groups match with grades. For instance, students are about 6–12 years old in primary school, about 13–15 in secondary and 16–18 in high school. Our results are close to this study also. Considering the counterbalance of participants distribution, a multi-resource nonparametric test was run. Statistical significance was observed among districts (P < 0.05) which may distribute to the difference of sample size.
We analyzed suspected risk factors like categories of key schools, eye exercises and sports time. We found that the prevalence of reduced VA was higher in the key schools than in the non-key schools (In China, a key school associates with added educational resources and intense studying environment). The same finding was confirmed by an earlier study carried out in Beijing city20. The duration of eye exercises and physical exercise was the same in all 239 schools, in accordance with protocols implemented by Changsha Education Bureau. Therefore, it is difficult to determine whether there is any correlation between reduced VA and these two factors.
We additionally found out that there were 3,496 students having severe unilateral visual impairment with the other eye’s VA being normal. This may indicate an organic non-refractive cause such as retinal detachment. Further examination and investigations are required in such cases to guide appropriate treatment.
The high prevalence of reduced VA warns us about the deteriorating ocular health of children and adolescents and urges us to take appropriate measures. In the current scenario of insufficient eye care services, there are worldwide efforts to establish telemedicine and even artificial intelligence for eye care21, 22. UK National Health Service (NHS), for instance, has established the Hospital Eye Service (HES) with virtual technology, namely the glaucoma monitoring service23. These technological achievements represent the direction of mainstream development of current medical technology. Under such circumstance, we conceive to set up a cloud platform to collect the visual data and analyze the prevalence of reduced VA in screening program, to optimize human resource management and promote work efficiency, this can in line with these international developments.
The cloud platform includes a data logging system and a primary system. The students, guardians and school faculties are all allowed to log in with specified permission. We upload visual data after ocular examination and gather data for an overview. The data can be archived and downloaded whenever it is needed. Individual visual data file can be downloaded to clinic terminal when patients come to visit and be updated after the examination. Changes are then analyzed and development trend predicted. Thus, we can offer appropriate refractive prescriptions and suggestions. If clients establish individual visual data file from childhood to adulthood, we are able to monitor their visual development over a long period of time. Even when these individuals age and come across age-related ocular diseases like age-related cataract, the additional information is valuable in offering refractive cataract surgery options24. This cloud platform also can be regarded as supplement for epidemiology data bank. Our privacy policy includes building firewall to raise data security. Besides data archive and push messages, we expect to explore more functions to run a better and more efficient cloud platform.
This study is the initial stage of our whole program. The observation indices were UCDVA and UCNVA only at this stage. More observation indices like corneal curvature, axial length, subjective refraction, autorefraction and others will be included in future. Another limitation of this study is the sample size. In our investigation, a statistically significant difference was found in the prevalence of reduced VA among districts, which may attribute to the difference in sample size. Further studies in minor sample size districts are expected to be conducted. More schools ought to be examined and appropriate schedules set to meet the available time of students in high school grade 3.