Original articleSelf-Reported Use of Eye Care among Latinos: The Los Angeles Latino Eye Study
Section snippets
Study Design
Details of the LALES study design, sampling plan, and baseline data have been reported.14 To summarize, a household census of all residents within 6 census tracts in La Puente, California, was conducted between February 2000 and May 2003 to identify eligible individuals. Demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of Latinos in the 6 census tracts of La Puente were similar to those of the Latino population in Los Angeles County. All eligible participants (aged ≥ 40 years at the time of the
Study Cohort
Of the 7789 eligible participants, 6870 (88%) completed the in-home questionnaire and 6357 (82%) completed both the in-home questionnaire and the full eye examination. Complete data were available on 5455 participants who were included in this study (Table 1). Twenty-one percent were age 65 years or older, 59% were female, 72% were married, 66% had a low acculturation score, 76% were foreign born, 67% had less than 12 years of education, and 51% preferred Spanish. Seventeen percent had an
Discussion
Recently published guidelines from the American Academy of Ophthalmology recommend that members of high-risk population groups, including Latinos, receive a comprehensive eye examination every 1 to 3 years between the ages of 40 and 54 years, every 1 to 2 years between the ages of 55 and 64 years, and every 6 to 12 months after the age of 64 years.27 In this population-based study of Latinos 40 years and older living in Southern California, only 36% reported having an eye care visit of any kind
Limitations
This study has several limitations. The reliance on self-reported measures of use of care poses a risk of recall bias, that is, participants may not accurately recall use of medical care and eye care services.37 To minimize recall bias, LALES only asked questions with a 12-month recall period or questions about ever having had a particular kind of visit.14 The use of retrospective questions about visits in the past year is supported by Roberts et al,38 who found that recollections of medical
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2018, Canadian Journal of OphthalmologyCitation Excerpt :Lower education, male sex, and lower household income were also related to less eye care use. Previous research has also identified these factors.4,14,15,22–25 Those with lower education may be unaware of the need for routine eye examinations with increasing age.
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2017, American Journal of OphthalmologyCitation Excerpt :However, it is important to note that the method for diagnosing vision impairment was different between studies: comprehensive eye examination in CHES but self-report in the BRFSS.12 Our data suggested that the level of eye care use by Chinese Americans is as low as that reported for older African Americans and Hispanics, and lower than that reported for older whites.10,17 The Salisbury Eye Evaluation Project, a population-based survey of 65- to 84-year-olds in Salisbury, Maryland, reported that 50% of African Americans and 69% of whites in their study visited an eye care professional in the past year.10
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*A list of members of the LALES study group appears in Appendix 1 (available at http://aaojournal.org).
Manuscript no. 2008-1474.
Financial Disclosure(s): The author(s) have no proprietary or commercial interest in any materials discussed in this article.
Supported by the National Eye Institute and the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland (grant nos. EY11753 and EY03040), and an unrestricted grant from the Research to Prevent Blindness, New York, New York. Dr. Varma is a Research to Prevent Blindness Sybil B. Harrington Scholar. Drs. Leo Morales and Ron Andersen received partial support for this research from the Resource Center for Minority Aging Research at UCLA under Grant P30AG02168 and the Drew-UCLA Project Export under Grant 2P20MD000182.
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Group members listed online in Appendix 1 (available online at http://aaojournal.org)