Colour-blindness in Colombia.

The frequency of defective colour vision was studied in two neighbouring villages in the Andes Mountains of Colombia using AO H-R-R Pseudoisochromatic plates. The frequency of the red-green colour-blindness in males is almost the same in both villages (2.36-2.53%), being similar to frequencies reported for other mestizo' populations in Latin America. In one of the communities, families in which colour-blindness occurred were wealthier (P is less than 0.05) than non-colour-blind families, but there were no significant differences by colour vision class in numbers of surviving children nor mother's marriage age. These findings are consistent with the idea that in societies at the agricultural level, colour-blindness is selectively neutral. The association of colour-blindness with higher socio-economic status is expected given the history of European conquest in the New World, and suggests that the major cause of varying rates of the defect in Latin American populations is socio-economic heterogeneity and by inference different degrees of European-Amerindian admixture.