Back Ground Causes of Human Cataract Prevalence in the Non-Coastal Districts

Abstract

AIM: Kerala despite being a state with total literacy and good health infrastructure still has a problem of treatable blindness. Kerala has been able to arrest the increasing prevalence of blindness by improving the general health conditions of individuals and by decreasing the population growth by community based programme.

Methods: A structural questionnaire was distributed among the patients in the hospitals, as well as in the houses in the two non- coastal districts(Kottayam and Pathanamthitta) of southern Kerala state of India directly or through the nurses to identify the background causes.

Result: Among the peoples participated in the questionnaire method, prevalence were highest among rurals than urbans or coastals, females than males, unilateral cataract blindness than bilateral cataract blindness, rice used as staple food as wheat and non-vegetarians as vegetarians in all the districts.

Conclusion: The present study has shown that Kerala has been able to arrest the increasing prevalence of blindness because of the improvement in the general health condition of individuals and decrease in the population growth.