Original articleOutdoor Activity Reduces the Prevalence of Myopia in Children
Section snippets
Materials and Methods
The Sydney Myopia Study is a population-based survey of refraction and other eye conditions in a sample of year 1 and year 7 school children resident in the metropolitan area of Sydney, Australia. Methods used to identify and select the target sample, as well as a description of this sample and study procedures, are reported elsewhere.28, 30 In brief, the study area was stratified by socioeconomic status, using Australian Bureau of Statistics 1996 and 2001 national census data. Using this
Results
Of the 2238 eligible children in year 1, 1765 (78.9%) were given parental permission to participate and 1740 were examined. Of the 3130 eligible children in year 7, 2367 (75.3%) were given permission and 2353 were examined (Table 1). Mean ages were 6.7 years (year 1 participants; range, 5.5–8.4) and 12.7 (year 7 participants; range, 11.1–14.4). Girls comprised just under half of each sample (49.4% in year 1 and 49.4% in year 7). Ethnicity of the year 1 sample was predominantly European
Discussion
Although some previous studies have reported an association between refractive error and more time spent on sport or outdoor activities, this population-based study is the first to make separate detailed measurements of time spent on outdoor activities and engagement in near work and indoor activities, which enable a discrimination between the effects of near work, middistance, and distance activities, as well as the effects of time spent on sport and total time spent outdoors.
Parssinen and
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Manuscript no. 2007-1147.
No conflicting relationship exists for any author.
The Sydney Myopia Study is supported by the National Health & Medical Research Council, Canberra, Australia (grant no. 253732), and Westmead Millennium Institute, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia. Dr Morgan's contribution was supported by the Australian Research Council, Canberra, Australia (grant no. COE561903). The sponsors and funding organizations had no role in the design or conduct of the research.