Prevalence of refractive errors in the European adult population: the Gutenberg Health Study (GHS)

Abstract

Refractive errors affect the majority of the population. The Gutenberg Health Study sample contains more myopes than other study cohorts in adult populations. Our findings do not support the hypothesis of a generally lower prevalence of myopia among adults in Europe as compared with East Asia.

Refractive errors

“…For example, a shortsighted person with a deficit in refractive power of -2 dpt sees in focus with no or only slight accommodation at a distance of 50 cm. Approximately 35% of the German population between the ages of 35 and 74 years is affected by myopia with ametropia of more than -0.5 dpt (21).…”

“…In Germany, 32.3% of the population between the ages of 35 and 74 years is affected by significant astigmatism greater than 0.5 dpt (21).…”

“…With-the-rule astigmatism occurs most often, followed by against-the-rule astigmatism; oblique astigmatism is much rarer (21). Particularly in monocular/unilateral cases with pronounced deformation, oblique astigmatism is associated with a high risk of amblyopia (27,28).…”

Characteristics of Refractive Errors in a Population of Adults in the Central Region of Poland

“…Population-based data indicate the prevalence of myopia as being higher in children of Chinese ethnicity; but in Chinese adults the rate of myopia is not much higher than what is found in White adult population [2]. Environmental factors like level of education, occupation, near-work load, time outdoors as a child are also associated with aetiology of refractive errors [2,7,8,9]. The gender differences in the prevalence of refractive errors have been also reported but many studies failed to confirm these associations [7,10,11,12,13,14].…”

“…However there are very few from Europe and all are from the Western part [7,11,25,26]. Poland is the biggest eastern European country with a population of 38 million people according to 2011 national census [27].…”