Fig 1.
Flow diagram showing the selection process for inclusion of studies in the meta-analysis.
CI = confidence interval; URE = uncorrected refractive error.
Table 1.
Characteristics of included population-based studies.
Table 2.
Number of included surveys available for Global Burden of Disease (GBD) sub-regions.
Fig 2.
Gender-standardized prevalence of URE by GBD sub-regions.
Prevalence rates shown are per 1000 children and include data from only those studies that assessed both eyes for each subject. Prevalence rates have been directly age- and gender-standardized to the 2020 world population with all ages groups Children (< 20 years) (population data extracted from Ref. 15); URE = uncorrected refractive error.
Fig 3.
Prevalence of URE by GBD sub-regions from 2000 to 2021 (per/1000).
Fig 4.
Crude prevalence of myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism by age in gender.
The broken line are informative data points from included studies that reported the prevalence of URE.
Fig 5.
Forest plot showing prevalence of refractive errors among children aged < 20 years in Western Pacific region.
Fig 6.
Forest plot showing prevalence of URE among children aged < 20 years in American region.
Fig 7.
Forest plot showing prevalence of refractive errors among children aged < 20 years in Eastern Mediterranean region.
Fig 8.
Forest plot showing prevalence of refractive errors among children aged < 20 years in South-East Asia region.