Global Women’s Eye Health: A Genetic Epidemiologic Perspective

Globally, women experience a greater burden of eye disease as compared to men. Women around the world face different obstacles in maintaining both healthy vision and prevention of vision loss. Understanding women’s eye health can be a challenge because risk can vary based on demographic, environmental, genetic, and social factors. Women also experience varying risk for visual impairment in different stages of their lives such as pregnancy, menopause, and post-menopause. Moreover, women experience a greater risk of visual impairment because of where they live in terms of resources and social and cultural norms. Furthermore, genetics can increase women’s risk for visual impairment due to heritable ocular conditions and gene-environment interactions. Overall, due to these factors, women have differences in health needs that are less understood and can cause health inequity for women across the globe. Understanding these unique health needs can only be achieved by research driven to address these issues and why it is essential for women to take part in research and clinical studies. Thus addressing these unique health needs are essential to provide opportunity for women around the world to have both adequate and relevant health care, targeted preventative services, and management services to avoid life-long visual impairment.