Prevalence,Causes And Impacts Of Vision Impairment Among Elderly People In Rural China:Based On The China Health And Retirement Longitudinal Study(CHARLS)

Since the launch of the reform and opening-up policy in 1978,China’s economy has stepped onto a fast-developing road and has become one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.Although China has made remarkable achievements in economic growth and poverty reduction,poverty and inequality still exist.Compared with urban areas,the level of human capital in rural areas of China is lower,therefore,by continuously improving the level of human capital in rural areas is an important part of the sustainable development of China’s economy.Health not only affects the individual’s life experience and human capital accumulation but also affects the long-term growth of the national economy.Good health can increase an individual’s labor productivity and increase the country’s economic growth rate.In modern society,vision health has become an important part of health.Poor vision not only causes potential loss to the national economy but also affects the individual’s physical and mental health and quality of life.Vision health is an important part of healthy human capital.However,China is facing a serious vision health crisis,especially with a high prevalence of vision impairment among elderly people aged 50 years and above.The prevalence of vision impairment in China is the highest in the world and this data is still climbing year by year.The increasing number of elderly people with poor vision will cause serious economic losses to socioeconomic development.The early onset of vision impairment and the high prevalence of vision impairment not only endanger the quality of the modern population but also affect the accumulation of human capital in the future.However,due to the lack of accurate information,the correct rate of vision impairment among rural elderly people is very low.Therefore,it is particularly urgent to use large sample data to study the current prevalence of vision impairment in rural areas of China.From the perspective of health economics,this paper uses measurement and statistical analysis to study the prevalence,causes and impacts of vision impairment among elderly people in rural China.The data used in this paper comes from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study(CHARLS)survey.The China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study(CHARLS)survey is an ongoing longitudinal study assessing the social,economic,and health status of the Chinese population aged 50 years and above.These participants for the study were selected together with their spouses.The CHARLS data that was used for this study was based on the first nationally representative survey of the Chinese elderly people,which was conducted between 2011,2013 and 2015 in wave Ⅰ,wave Ⅱ and wave Ⅲ.The individuals in the CHARLS survey have been and will be followed up every two years.In this study,12910 individuals aged 50 years and above were selected in this study.All data were collected using a self-report of vision impairment.The study first described a descriptive analysis of the prevalence of vision impairment among Chinese elderly people and the relationship between characteristics and vision.Second,we used the chi-square test to compare the prevalence of different kinds of vision impairments among elderly people.Third,a multiple linear regression analysis was used to identify the impacts of vision impairment.Finally,a multiple linear regression analysis was also used to investigate the association of vision impairment between social factors and causes among elderly people.The main conclusions of this study are as follows:First,the overall prevalence of vision impairment in our target population was relatively low among Chinese elderly people over the period of 2011,2013 and 2015.Most of the respondents do not know about their vision health conditions and maybe after five years they also might suffer from some of the common vision impairments.Secondly,we have shown from this study that the prevalence of vision impairment was much higher in rural than in urban areas.Females had a greater prevalence of vision impairment in all the age groups than males and prevalence increased and peaked in the aged 80 years and above.We showed that the prevalence of affected females and males in both rural and urban areas increased with increasing age.Third,the leading cause of vision impairment was a refractive error and the most common causes of vision impairments including cataract and glaucoma are largely treatable.As also expected,increasing age,female gender,rural residents,elementary school level,unmarried individuals,non-agriculture,unemployment were statistically significant social factors associated with increased rates of vision impairment.Fourth,vision impairment has many significant impacts on quality of life and well-being of Chinese elderly people,their families and communities.In addition,the results of this study strengthen the evidence that there is a significant association between vision impairment and falls and depression in rural elderly populations.Based on the above research conclusions,combined with the existing literature and the current situation of vision impairment of elderly people in rural areas,this paper proposes the following policy recommendations for further development of rural elderly people vision health management:First,to decrease the prevalence of vision impairment,the government should consider establishing programs to prevent and control vision impairment by integrating eye care services with primary and secondary healthcare.Second,the government should strengthen the popularity of vision health knowledge,pay more attention to the elder’s eye development and vision health status.The government must provide correct information and vision knowledge should be told to the elder’s people in rural China,such as wearing eyeglasses could ease the vision burden for the older people with poor vision.Third,rural elder’s individuals should strengthen their health awareness,take the initiative to learn scientific knowledge of eye protection and other health knowledge,actively paying attention to their visual status,and when they feel their visual acuity changes significantly,they should inform doctors and physicians in time to check and treat them accordingly.Finally,it is suggested that the government should improve the rural hospitals for better vision screening in time and elderly people can enjoy the benefits of regular eye screening at the lowest cost.