ORIGINAL ARTICLESRefractive error study in children: results from La Florida, Chile☆
Section snippets
Methods
The study population was selected by random cluster sampling. La Florida was segmented into 317 clusters, each with a population of approximately 1000 inhabitants based on the 1992 census, including approximately 200 children ages 5 to 15 years. Clusters were defined by grouping community blocks, using streets as cluster boundaries. Each such cluster was contained entirely within a single neighborhood community. Twenty-six clusters were selected randomly with equal probability from the 317. The
Results
Within the 26 clusters, 3,830 houses with children 5 to 15 years of age were identified: 1,740 (45.4%) had one child; 1,377 (36.0%) had two children; 481 (12.6%) had three children; and 232 (6.1%) had four or more children. Six families had eight children. No children in the 5 to 15 year age range were found in 4,042 of the enumerated households. Information regarding children in the household was refused, at each of up to three visits, for an additional 1,464 houses. Another 214 houses were
Discussion
An uncorrected visual acuity of 0.50 or worse was present in at least one eye in 15.8% of the study population. With best vision, this number decreased to 7.4%. Because few children wore glasses, 7.3% of the cohort could benefit from the provision of correcting lenses. The prevalence of best-corrected visual acuity 0.50 or worse in the better eye, 3.3% (173 of 5,265), was higher than that reported in the China or Nepal surveys.2, 3
Much of the vision loss beyond that attributed to refractive
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Luz Maria Nuñez for her efforts in coordinating the fieldwork and to Luis Bustos for assistance with data management. The authors also acknowledge the clerical assistance of Jeanne King, National Eye Institute, in the preparation of this manuscript.
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This study was supported by the World Health Organization under National Institutes of Health Contract N01-EY-2103, Bethesda, Maryland.