Optometry service stats show gender differences

According to a report from Optometry Australia (OA), the latest statistics from Medicare reveal that of the 8.5 million optometric services provided in 2015–16, women received approximately 57% while men received 43%.The highest level of optometric services were said to have been absorbed by women aged between 45 and 74, numbering at around 2.3 million services. By comparison, approximately 1.8 million of those services were provided to men within the same age bracket.However, men accounted for 83% of the 8,222 services to rove a foreign body from the eye. With 6,826 male cases versus 1,396 fale cases, men were almost five times more likely to need an optometrist to rove a foreign body such as bits of metal, sand, dirt, grit and vegetative matter from their eye.OA also pointed to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s report, Australia’s Health 2016. The report showed that more than 55% of Australians – more than 12 million – have at least one long-term vision disorder, and that these are more common among fales than men, with a prevalence of 59% and 51%, respectively.“It is critical that men and women don’t take their eyesight for granted,” OA senior resident optometrist Mr Simon Hanna said. “Just like the rest of our body, we have to look after our eyes and the sooner we start doing this, the better our chance of maintaining good vision for life.”Mr Hanna’s comment referenced OA’s consumer eye-health awareness campaign, ‘Good vision for life’, which launched in Septber. OA recently reported that more than 1.6 million Australians had been exposed to the campaign last month.Interestingly, fales were the most popular campaign fans across the website and Facebook, accounting for 55% and 77% of visitors/fans, respectively.In Septber, the website had 17,605 page views – including 515 page views for the ‘Find an optometrist’ section – with 23% returning visitors. The most popular section of the website excluding the landing page was the ‘Visiting your optometrist’ section.The full Septber campaign results can be viewed at www.optometry.org.au