Department of Ophthalmology, Kangdong Sacred Heart Hospital, Hallym University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
Department of Ophthalmology, Hanyang University Seoul Hospital, Hanyang University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
J Korean Med Sci. 2023 Jul 17;38(28):e213. doi: 10.3346/jkms.2023.38.e213.
Contemporary data on vision impairment form an important basis for public health policies. However, most data on the clinical epidemiology of blindness are limited by small sample sizes and focused not on systemic conditions but ophthalmic diseases only. In this study, we examined the ten-year trends of blindness prevalence and its correlation with systemic health status in Korean adults.
This study investigated 10,000,000 participants randomly extracted from the entire Korean population (aged ≥ 20 years) who underwent a National Health Insurance Service health checkup between 2009 and 2018. Participants with blindness, defined as visual acuity in the better-seeing eye of ≤ 20/200, were identified. The prevalence of blindness was assessed, and the systemic health status was compared between participants with blindness and without blindness.
The mean prevalence of blindness was 0.473% (47,115 blindness cases) and tended to decrease over ten years (0.586% in 2009 and 0.348% in 2018; < 0.001). The following factors were significantly associated with blindness: female sex, underweight (body mass index < 18.5), high serum creatinine (> 1.5 mg/dL), and bilateral hearing loss. In addition, except for those aged 30-39 and 40-49 years, high fasting glucose (≥ 126 mg/dL) and low hemoglobin (male: < 12 g/dL, female: < 10 g/dL) were significantly correlated with prevalent blindness.
Our ten-year Korean nationwide population-based study suggested a gradual decrease in the prevalence of blindness and its association with specific systemic health status. These conditions might be the cause or consequence of blindness and can be used as a reference for the prevention and/or rehabilitation of blindness to establish public health policies.
当代视力损伤数据是公共卫生政策的重要基础。然而，大多数关于失明临床流行病学的数据受到样本量小的限制，并且不仅限于眼科疾病，还关注全身状况。在这项研究中，我们检查了韩国成年人失明患病率的十年趋势及其与全身健康状况的相关性。
本研究调查了 2009 年至 2018 年间接受韩国全民健康保险服务健康检查的 1000 万全体韩国人口（年龄≥20 岁）中随机抽取的 1000 万人。将视力在较好眼视力≤20/200 的人定义为失明。评估了失明的患病率，并比较了失明和非失明参与者的全身健康状况。
失明的平均患病率为 0.473%（47115 例失明），且在十年间呈下降趋势（2009 年为 0.586%，2018 年为 0.348%；<0.001）。以下因素与失明显著相关：女性、体重不足（体重指数<18.5）、高血清肌酐（>1.5mg/dL）和双侧听力损失。此外，除了 30-39 岁和 40-49 岁年龄组外，高空腹血糖（≥126mg/dL）和低血红蛋白（男性：<12g/dL，女性：<10g/dL）与普遍失明显著相关。
我们的十年韩国全国人群研究表明，失明的患病率逐渐下降，与特定的全身健康状况相关。这些情况可能是失明的原因或后果，可以作为制定公共卫生政策预防和/或康复失明的参考。
