A new report reveals the urgent need for improved public education about the need for sight tests and the leading causes of sight loss.
The report, Britain's Eye Health in Focus, has been published by The College of Optometrists.
It said that while 59 per cent of women and 45 per cent of men viewed sight tests as 'very important', this does not mean they are regularly getting their eyes tested.
Sight tests
Five per cent of people over 40 said they had not been for a sight test for at least 10 years or could not recall when they last went. This rises to 11 per cent of the people from ethnic minorities who were questioned.
Parents place a higher importance on their children's eye health than their own. However, a quarter of parents said their child has never had an eye test and almost one in ten parents either couldn't recall when their child last had a sight test, or said it was more than ten years ago.
Eye health
Although 95 per cent of people have heard of cataracts, just 29 per cent of people said they had never heard of age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness in the UK.
Almost a third of people (31 per cent) were not aware that glaucoma can run in families, suggesting the need to increase awareness of hereditary eye conditions. Although people of African-Caribbean and Asian origin are more likely to develop certain eye conditions, over three quarters (78 per cent) of people from the 'at risk' groups are unaware that they could be at increased risk.
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