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By Keith Mulvihill
NEW YORK, Mar 16 (Reuters Health) - Being poor and uneducated increases a person's risk of developing glaucoma-related blindness, researchers report in the March 17th issue of the British Medical Journal.
"Our study adds to the sparse evidence that lower socioeconomic status is linked with increased risk of chronic eye disease and extends it to include glaucoma," according to Scott Fraser of University College London and colleagues.
Glaucoma is a disease that gradually steals sight without warning and often without symptoms. Vision loss is caused by abnormally high pressure inside the eye. Early treatment can help ward off the disease, but regular screening is needed to catch it at an early stage.
Fraser and colleagues evaluated the socioeconomic status of 110 patients diagnosed with advanced glaucoma and compared them with 110 people in an early stage of the disease. The investigators took into account the patients' education, their access to a car, and whether they rented or owned their home.
Patients in a more advanced stage of their illness where more likely to be considered "underprivileged" based on the researchers' classification system.
The study seems to be the first to show that those people who have the least financial stability and social support to cope with blindness are at higher risk of going blind due to glaucoma, the authors report.
Currently, it is estimated that 2.5 million to 3 million people in the US have glaucoma. African Americans are 3 to 5 times more likely to develop glaucoma than white Americans are, according to Dr. M. Roy Wilson, a spokesman for the Glaucoma Research Foundation in San Francisco, California.
"Nobody has ever figured out why this is so," Wilson told Reuters Health. "Socioeconomic status may play a role and can be a major factor--it has been shown to be a factor in many other types of disease," he said.
The findings of this study help support the hypothesis that African Americans have a higher risk of glaucoma compared with whites in part because of socioeconomic circumstances, Wilson noted.
Glaucoma, which is a chronic disease, must be treated for life. To date, its causes are not well understood and there is no cure, according to the Glaucoma Research Foundation.
The eye disease can occur in people of all ages, but those at higher risk of developing glaucoma include people over age 60, African Americans over age 40, those related to people with glaucoma, diabetics, and people who are very nearsighted.
SOURCE: British Medical Journal 2001;322:639-643.
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