Introduction
Myopia’s origin is unknown but can involve environmental and genetic elements. Quinn et al. (1999) investigated whether children’s refractive development might be related to any discernible light exposure pattern. 30% of the 479 kids in their sample were myopic, ranged from 2 to 16 years, and had a median age of 8 years (Quinn et al., 1999). Quinn et al. (1999) found a significant correlation between nighttime lighting before age two and childhood myopia (Chen & Strang, 2023).
On the other hand, Zadnik et al.’s (2000) study used a sample of school children from the multicenter Collaborative Longitudinal Evaluation of Ethnicity and Refractive Error (CLEERE) Study to investigate nursery lighting. 18.1% of the 1,220 children in their sample, with a median age of 10.2 years, were myopic (Zadnik et al., 2000). However, their findings suggested that baby exposure to night-time lights was unlikely to cause myopia.
Analyzing the Methodology of Both Studies
The methodology in both studies affected the differences in how these two studies made their reports. They show notable variance in sample participants, sample collection, investigational methods, and overall conclusions (Peter & Gittens, 2015). One distinction is that the Quinn et al. (1999) study excluded parental myopia-controlled trials that ignored genetic factors.
Another distinction is that the sample used by Quinn et al. (1999) did not accurately reflect young myopes. The sample’s median age was eight, which is young for a group of myopes, and it had a high percentage of myopia (30%) (Quinn et al., 1999). The children in the second study sample were older and contained fewer myopes and hyperopes.
In both studies, different percentages of parents disclosed that their infants slept with all the lights on. While only 3.7% of the representative sample from Zadnik et al. (2000) had full room lighting at night, more than 15% of the clinic-based sample from Quinn et al. (1999) had full nursery lighting. Furthermore, the Quinn et al. (1999) study found that there were five times as many children with myopia among those who slept with room lights on as those who slept in the dark.
Conclusion
Nevertheless, both clinical studies examined methods for detecting myopia before children’s age (National Institute on Aging, n.d.). These methodology differences resulted in substantially divergent conclusions. The second study did not find convincing proof that infants under two years old can develop myopia due to night-time lighting.
References
Chen, A. H., & Strang, N. (2023). No changes in the accommodative stimulus-response curve but varied lag of accommodation after a 30-min electronic near task under four different lighting conditions among myopic young adults. Journal of Sustainability Science and Management, 18(6), 10-22. Web.
Peter, F., & Gittens, C. A. (2015). Think critically (3rd ed.). Pearson Education.
National Institute on Aging. (n.d.). What are clinical trials and studies? Web.
Quinn, G. E., Shin, C. H., Maguire, M. G., & Stone, R. A. (1999). Myopia and ambient lighting at night. Nature, 399(6732), 113-114. Web.
Zadnik, K., Jones, L. A., Irvin, B. C., Kleinstein, R. N., Manny, R. E., Shin, J. A., & Mutti, D. O. (2000). Myopia and ambient night-time lighting. Nature, 404(6774), 143-144. Web.
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