Minorities have worse vision prior to cataract surgery

A number of sociodemographic factors influence best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) threshold before cataract surgery, leading researchers to believe that health disparities remain a prevalent problem in the United States health care system, according to data from an IRIS Registry analysis presented at AAO 2022.

In this retrospective cohort study on 539,818 eyes from 383,217 patients who underwent cataract surgery between 2013 and 2020, sociodemographic factors, including age; sex; race; and insurance type, and BCVA data were collected before surgery and 6 months after surgery.

The median BCVA in White patients was found to be significantly lower than in all other races, which the authors said indicated “better preoperative vision in White patients than all other patients.”

Minority race, Hispanic/Latino ethnicity, and Medicaid-insured patients were factors associated with worse BCVA, whereas male sex and having insurance were factors associated with better BCVA.

“These large-scale findings indicate that several key demographic factors significantly affect the BCVA threshold at which cataract surgery is performed in the United States,” the authors concluded.

Reference
Hall NE, et al. Factors Contributing to Disparities in VA Prior to Cataract Surgery: An IRIS® Registry Analysis. Poster presented at: AAO 2022.