Trends in myopia prevalence among late adolescents in South Korea: a population-level study and future projections up to 2050

Description

Short-sightedness is sweeping South Korea's young men, and Dongheon Surl, Yuri Seo, and Jinu Han chart its course in a 2024 population study. They used the medical examinations that Seoul's military manpower office gives late adolescent men, a near-complete census of that age group, from 2013 to 2022.

Across the decade, about seventy-one percent of the young men were myopic and twenty percent highly myopic, and both shares rose significantly year by year. Projecting the trend, the authors expect myopia near ninety-one percent and high myopia near thirty-one percent by 2050. More schooling went with more high myopia. Retinal detachment, a sight-threatening event, was more common in the highly myopic group. The authors call the trajectory a public health concern for the country's eye services.

Catalog record

Source: https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC11647360