UK optometrists perform over 20 million eye examinations every year. Making the most of every patient interaction is what good practice now demands. We cannot squander the chance to think beyond the length of an eye.

The assessment of children and the management of myopia are two of the clearest opportunities to think and counsel beyond the eye. 

A paper presented earlier this year at ARVO provided evidence that the UK profession cannot ignore. Dahlmann-Noor et al (2026) gave us the first national picture of children’s access to open space and greenery in England. In the year 2024/25, just under half a million children and young people aged five to 15 received a spectacle prescription for myopia. The deprivation curve was bimodal; the rates of myopia were highest in both the poorest and the wealthiest neighbourhoods, with the gap most pronounced in the youngest children. Interestingly, the team found a small but statistically robust inverse correlation between myopia prescriptions and the density of green vegetation within 500 metres of the child’s home, suggesting that different lifestyle factors may be associated with myopia development. They concluded that access to green spaces may reduce the risk of myopia.