THE RETURN OF THE ANNUAL ARVO meeting, with its miles of aisles of posters and papers, is a regular re­minder of the staggering, largely unseen international ef­fort to combat eye disease through research. But in the depths of the ab­stracts are also some re­minders that our societal vision is not im­mune to myo­pia.

A group at the Uni­versity of Maryland held 10 focus groups with Af­ri­can-American participants over the past two years to ad­dress general eye questions, attitudes about eye exams, knowledge of glaucoma risk factors, knowledge of diabetic retinopathy risk factors, and physician communication.

Of the 86 participants (60 percent of whom were age 65 or older), two-thirds had not had a recent eye exam. Less than one-third indicated that a physician had recommended that they have a dilated fundus exam. Vision problems or a diagnosis of glaucoma or diabetes were the strongest motivators for having a dilated fundus exam, but, as is known, vision problems are not are part of the equation in early glaucoma, and so much of glaucoma and diabetes is undiagnosed. (Abstract #399)

In Australia two years after an eye- health promotion campaign, re­search­ers surveyed 1,695 Melbourne residents aged 70 to 79 to gather information on self-reported eye disease, utilization of services and attitudes and knowledge regarding eye health. Only 31 percent of visually impaired people knew about low vision services, of which one third had used them. Of all 21 people that were visually impaired due to AMD, only 29 percent knew about low-vision services and only one in 10 used them.

Of the respondents with diabetes, only half had a dilated eye exam with­in two years. Of all 11 people that were visually im­paired due to glaucoma, half were previously un­diagnosed, and none of them had an eye test in the previous four years. (Ab­stract #3478)

Obviously this is another multifactorial issue. Education level, for example, was not related to frequency of eye exams in the Australian study, and an eye-health promotional campaign had been conducted there just two years earlier. The majority of subjects in the Maryland study were satisfied with the information they received from their physicians, but many reported that they themselves had to play a more active role to get the medical information and care that they needed.

Given the predicted increases in di­seases whose health consequences can largely be prevented or substantially delayed by early prevention, we need a vision on preventive medicine.