Myopia is a refractive error characterized by the blurred vision of objects viewed at a distance. It is far more than a mere inconvenience and represents a true, highly prevalent, sight-threatening disease, that has reached epidemic proportions in Asia. Besides its high socio-economic burden, high myopia (spherical equivalent of -5 Diopters or worse), affecting 2.7% of the world population, can lead to serious ocular complications and vision loss. The risk of high myopia is particularly high in children with myopia onset during the early school ages, which is common in Singapore. To reduce the risk of high myopia development in adulthood, today there’s an urgent need for effective prevention strategies for early-onset myopia in Singapore and Asia.
Increased outdoor time is protective against myopia. Analogously, experimental studies in animal models of myopia and interventional studies in humans suggest that exposure to bright light, similar to daylight, or even brighter light levels indoors, can prevent or delay myopia onset.1–4 Concomitantly, spectrally-tuned, moderate levels of light (e.g., indoor light levels) can limit myopia development.5,6
In this talk, I will share our team’s journey to understand the protective features of outdoor time and optimize the spectro-temporal characteristics of light exposure for myopia prevention in several animal models, while exploring underlying mechanisms and technical applications. Additionally, I will introduce our latest school-based trial, "LightSPAN," which aims to translate our findings into improved light exposure for children, providing a more effective, safe, and scalable approach to myopia prevention and control.