AP Research Week 4 + 5: Analysis Of The Myopia Survey

Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog!

These past two weeks have been very productive. The analysis is mostly complete and I just have to make a few revisions in order for it to be fully done. Here’s the full analysis.

In the case of the correlation between age and myopia, the results showed that there is a non-significant relationship between the two (left eye: p = 0.054313; right eye: p = 0.174854; p > 0.05). Although age was not one of the primary factors being examined in this study, the association between age and myopia is definitely worth noting in this study as all the articles mentioned in my literature review achieved statistical significance when being correlated. Since this study primarily focuses on adolescents and only at one point in their lifetime, age within this study isn’t sufficient for gauging the quality of one’s eyesight as these individuals are still growing and have yet to reach the point where the effects of aging naturally begins to deteriorate one’s eyesight.

Unlike age, near-work activities are considered one of the essential indicators for determining quality of vision. Unfortunately, the correlation between time spent doing near-work activities and myopia was also found to be non-significant within this study (left eye: p = .411891; right eye: p = .10039; p > 0.05). Similarly to age, the correlation between near-work and myopia achieved statistical significance in the articles chosen in the literature review, Chen et al., 2018 and Saw, 2003. However, the findings found in this study contradict both those articles, which can be attributed to a variety of factors. One potential factor is the lack of a widely accepted definition for “near-work,” which may have obscured how each individual submitted their amount of time in hours per day spent doing these activities. Another potential element that may have inhibited the results for this section is how individuals perceive what the necessary distance may be for it to count as near-work. An example is depending on the viewing distance from which people look at their TVs or stare at a screen, some people may perceive their viewing distance to be far enough for it to count as near-work. This lack of clarity can skew the results and shows that people spending time partaking in activities that involve short distances may not develop myopia.

The amount of time spent outdoors is another crucial method for gauging one’s visual acuity. However, contradictory to the findings in Sherwin et al, 2012, and Lee, Lo, & Lin, 2013, the results of this study have shown that time spent outdoors has no significant correlation with myopia (left eye: p = 0.820301; right eye: p = 0.368894; p > 0.05). This finding is interesting because pre-existing research has found that spending more time being outdoors decreases the likelihood of developing myopia, which overall decreases its prevalence (Sherwin et al., 2012; Lee, Lo & Lin, 2013). This means that although this study found no correlation between myopia and outdoor activities, this does not rule out that outdoor activity may have a protective effect against myopia, which is why there was no significant correlation found. Although this implication may not necessarily disprove the hypothesis, there are a few potential explanations as to why there was no correlation. One reason for this could be that there was no specific time frame included within the question, which could have led participants to incorrectly input their hours. Another possible constituent is that participants may not have included mundane tasks such as walking to school or walking a pet as outdoor activity, which may have made individuals report less amount of time spent outdoors. Both of the reasons mentioned could have significantly altered the results of the survey.

The last major component that can influence a person’s eyesight is diet. In opposition to the results found in Katz & Lambert., 2011 and Laurance S. Lim et al, 2010, the results of this paper once again found no significant association between diet and myopia (left eye: p = 0.402345; right eye: p = 0.334359; p > 0.05). One potential explanation for this lack of correlation could be due to how diet was quantified within this study. There are multitudes of factors that go into a person’s diet and each of those components affects eyesight differently. Due to the survey not providing a concrete method for quantifying the healthiness of each participant’s diet, the results of this section could have been skewed, which in turn disproves the hypothesis of this study.

This all means that other factors, such as genetics, may contribute more to the prevalence of myopia than the environmental factors mentioned above. Although genetics was not accounted for in this study, pre-existing research has signified in the past that genetics can play a significant role in the prevalence and development of myopia in adolescents, which can be due to either the parents having myopia or an underlying chromosomal linkage (Jiali Li & Qingjiong Zhang, 2017; Stambolian et al., 2004). That is all for this week, see you guys next time.