Overall, the health needs of women in Bangladesh are second only to those of men. “In our male-dominated society, when a man has a problem, it requires immediate attention, but women can wait,” she said.
But the effects of vision loss can be particularly severe for women, who are often responsible for earning extra income for their families in addition to childcare and housework, Ms Mahjabeen said. “When it takes more time to sew and clean, or when you can’t sort out all the stones from the rice, in some households it leads to domestic violence,” he said.
VisionSpring distributes more than two million pairs of glasses annually across South Asia and Africa, up from 300,000 in 2018.
The study in PLOS One builds on previous research involving tea pickers in India, which found a significant jump in productivity among study participants given reading glasses. The paper, a randomized study published in The Lancet Global Health in 2018, documented a 22 percent increase in productivity among workers who had received glasses. For those over 50, productivity increased by nearly 32 percent.
Agad Ali, 57, a Bangladeshi tailor in the town of Manikganj, was among those who received a pair of glasses as part of the study published this week. In an interview conducted by a community health worker and sent via email, she described how worsening presbyopia had made it increasingly difficult to thread needles and sew clothes, adding to the time it took to finish each sewing work. Over time, he said, some customers went elsewhere and his income began to decline. “It made me feel very helpless,” she said.
Since receiving the glasses, he said, his income has doubled. “These glasses are like my lifeline,” he told the community health worker. “I couldn’t do my job without them.”
