Investigating the Impact of Past Time Spent Outdoors in the Sun on Risk of Myopia in Young Adults

Epidemiological trends predict that, in the future, more people will lose vision due to myopia and its complications. Spending more time outside can prevent myopia in children, but the long-term effects are not well characterised. This thesis demonstrates that young adults have poor long-term recall of childhood time spent outdoors; however, past time spent outdoors can be assessed using multiple other objective and subjective measures. Spending more time outdoors in childhood and in adolescence were both associated with reduced risk of having myopia in young adulthood. Spending time outdoors in childhood and in adolescence have long-term benefits for preventing myopia.