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Comment by AndrewThrowaway | Hacker News Reader

Again and again US surprises us all as if it was a third world country.

Study shouldn't be surprising at all - pupils who struggle to see, struggle to learn. Giving them eyeglasses helps a lot.

I would imagine a study like this would be a thing in some third world country. Reading the title you would imagine some poorly lit classroom, wooden walls and clay floor and etc.

But it is Baltimore?

I grew up in Soviet and then Post-Soviet country. We all had eyesight tests every year, maybe even twice a year. If anything - you got eyeglasses. Yeah, maybe you were bullied for a week by pupils but that's it.

To be fair I am a bit shocked with US...

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This was my gut reaction too: no shit your performance increases if you use glasses when you need glasses! This is a finding on par with "giving food to hungry kids improves wellbeing"

Also, when you dont need to know prescription strength judged to 0.1 diopter accuracy, & ignore stuff like cilinder correction, a vision test is super cheap to perform, right?

Then, even supplying 5$ plastic glasses from the bargain bin would be a dramatic quality of life improvement for afflicted kids.

I share your feeling of shock.

I never understood why we (in the US) treat eyes differently for insurance purposes. I can’t think of any medical device for which it makes more sense to have a single payer system. The positive social externalities from having a populace who is able to see is enormous and would more than pay for itself. Things like car accidents, workplace related injuries, better school outcomes, etc.

But for some reason we’ve gone the complete opposite direction. Not only is eyesight not single payer it’s somehow been excluded from most health insurance and the vision plans that do exist aren’t particularly helpful.

And optometrists are permitted to cultivate a misleading* impression that you must or should buy your eyeglasses from them, and their cheapest model is $200 and every pair in the shop is probably sold by Luxottica.

Getting a new pair of glasses was an unreasonably rare and precious thing when I was growing up, because of the cost.

*in general, optometrists must produce a copy of the prescription that was paid for when asked, and then you can take it wherever. Make sure they write down your pupillary distance on it; they often "forget" to do this.

There are many, many studies one could run in Baltimore which, if extrapolated to the rest of the country, would definitely paint a pretty grim picture of the USA.

The life expectancy in Seton Hill of Baltimore is lower than that of Yemen's. The murder rate in the city as a whole is higher than El Salvador or Guatemala.

Those who've never visited have a hard time understanding just how undesirable of a place Baltimore really is.

It's not the United States of Baltimore. While there no doubt are parents spread across the country who neglect their children's health needs, to extrapolate the neglectful parents in Baltimore to the entire country makes as much sense as to do the same for Pripyat's radiation levels to all areas of the former Soviet Union.

I get what you are saying.

However I guess I was referring to all healthcare system in the US. I believe all over the Europe kid would be tested for free, every year, mandatorily. If eye correction is needed one would be supplied. So study like this wouldn't even be possible. Of course maybe some minimum payment would be needed, parents involved, etc. etc. But these are only details.

However the problem itself is not a problem of neglectful parents. It is a problem of healthcare system/educational system and society as whole.

I doubt it's mandatory and every year in all of Europe, although that would fit my expectations of ex-Soviet and former-Eastern-Bloc countries.

In England it is free, but at best it's automatic once. Otherwise it's up to the parent to arrange.

In Denmark it's done at age 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.

Statistics for 30 countries: https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/documents/downloa...

"Draft Country Reports were created based on responses from each country representative. Each draft Country Reports followed the same template and contained sections relating to: the population and healthcare system; vision screening commissioning and guidance; vision screening procedure for each age group (premature babies to age 7 years);" at page 5.

It looks like report is based on responses of experts, kids 0 - 7.

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