PINELLAS PARK, Fla. – Most Canadians (87 percent) think sunlight is dangerous for their eyes, but, despite this, more than half of Canadians falsely believe that you only need to protect your eyes from the sun’s UV rays in the warmer, summer months. Results from the 2015 “Light and Glare” survey from Transitions Optical, Inc.[i] show that 87 percent of Canadians agree that they should protect their eyes from the sun in July, but only 47 percent say the same for the month of December.
“Unfortunately, the survey results reveal a large group of Canadians who are still in the dark when it comes to understanding the importance of UV protection for the eyes year-round,” said Isabelle Tremblay-Dawson, senior marketing manager, Canada. “We hope this data will urge more people in the industry to talk more frequently about the ways in which UV rays are present during the entire calendar year.”
In addition to thinking that sunlight is dangerous to the eyes, Canadians also believe that blue light from digital devices (50 percent) and overhead lighting indoors (34 percent) can be harmful to the eyes as well.
“It is interesting that there is so much higher recognition of the danger of UV rays, versus blue light, because Canadians actually report that they increased their time spent using digital devices (70 percent) rather than their time outdoors (18 percent) over the past five years,” said Tremblay-Dawson. “The research suggests that even though Canadians are not necessarily spending more time outdoors, they still recognize that UV can be dangerous to the eyes – it’s just not top-of-mind year-round.”
Transitions Optical will be bringing attention to each month’s UV awareness statistic with a creative infographic on its Facebook page (Transitions lenses: Healthy Sight Professionals (Canada)) throughout 2015. Eyecare professionals are encouraged to share each month’s infographic on social media with their patients to help promote year-round sun protection for the eyes.
[i] Online survey conducted by Wakefield Research on behalf of Transitions Optical, Inc., among 1,000 Canadian adults, ages 18-69. The survey included oversamples to statistically significant subgroups of Asian Canadians, African Canadians and Aboriginal Canadians and was fielded between February 20th and March 6th, 2015.
