The impact of an additional year of education on myopia: an interrupted time series in the UK Biobank.

Abstract Introduction: In the past decade in the UK the minimal school leaving age has been raised twice. Previous studies have found evidence for a link between this type of policy and Myopia. This study aims to use the 1972 raising of school leaving age to help approximate the effect of the raising of school leaving age in 2013 and 2015. Methods: We use a segmented regression model to conduct an interrupted time series analyses of the effect of years of education on Myopia using the 1972 raising of school leaving age. We use an instrumental variable analysis to recover the effect of a one-year change. Results: We found evidence for a 0.60 (SE = 0.10) increase in years of education and, after adjusting for probability of having missing data and sex, a -0.14d (SE = 0.03) for refractive error. Instrumental variables analysis implies a -0.24 d/year (SE = 0.05) change in refractive error for each additional year in education. Conclusion: Our results triangulate the findings of previous studies on the effect of years of education on Myopia and imply that each raising of school leaving age in the 2010s should be expected to a result in a -0.07 d/yr change in refractive error.