Colour Blindness Research
Welcome, to Dr John Barry’s Colour Blindness Research Page
Colour blindness significantly impacts the quality of life of around 300 million people worldwide. Dr John Barry made a significant contribution to this condition by leading in the creation of the first validated questionnaire measure of the impact of Colour Blindness of Quality on Life (the CBQoL). This was done in collaboration with experts in ophthalmology at the University of Birmingham, and the research was published in the peer-reviewed journal Biomed Central Ophthalmology in 2017. Recruitment to the study was done with the help of Colour Blind Awareness.org, the leading charity for colour blindness in the UK. The main findings of this study were that colour blindness has a significant impact on a person’s life in terms of limiting their career (some jobs require normal colour vision), their health (e.g. some disease symptoms are missed by colour blind people), and emotional life (e.g. some people are embarrassed about being colour blind). Further details of the study can be seen in the abstract here.
What is Colour blindness?
What is colour blindness? Colour blindness (or colour vision deficiency, CVD) affects approximately 1 in 12 men (8%) and 1 in 200 women. In Britain, this means that there are approximately 3 million colour blind people (about 4.5% of the entire population), most of whom are male.
The most common form is ‘red green’ colour blindness. Despite its name it effects not only seeing red and green but other colours such as brown and orange, and impacts the ability to see some combinations of colours e.g. red writing on a black background.
Although there is relatively little research on the impact of having colour blindness, it is known that colour blindness can have a detrimental effect on people in a wide variety of ways from an early age. For example, many schoolchildren can’t read colour-coded educational materials such as maps, or differentiate team colours in sports. Many adults cannot read colour-coded graphs and charts at work or on Powerpoint slides.
The charity Colour Blind Awareness raises awareness of colour blindness and provides information to individuals and organisations on how they can make their workplace or other environment more colour blind friendly. September 6th is International Colour Blind Awareness Day.
Research Highlight: The Colour blindness Quality of Life Questionnaire
Background: Congenital colour vision deficiency (CVD), commonly called ‘colour blindness’, affects around 8% of men and 0.4% of women. Although many aspects of health (e.g. change in colour of urine) and healthcare (e.g. coloured medication, colour-coded diagnostic tests), and modern life depend upon colour coding (e.g. graphs, maps, signals), the impact of colour blindness on everyday life is not generally considered a topic of importance. This study is the first to create and validate a questionnaire measuring the quality of life (QoL) impact of being colour blind. Methods: This study consisted of two phases. Firstly, the questionnaire design and development phase was led by an expert panel and piloted on a focus group. Secondly, an online sample of 128 men and 291 women filled in the questionnaire, and the psychometric properties of the questionnaire were analysed using principal components analysis (PCA). The scores of colour blind (CB) participants and normal-sighted controls, controlling for age and sex, were compared using matched t-tests. Results: The PCA resulted in a questionnaire with three domains (or subscales): QoL for Health & Lifestyle, QoL for Work, and QoL for Emotions. Controlling for age, there was a significantly greater negative impact on QoL for CB people than normal-sighted controls in regards to confusion over colour in various aspects of their health (p = 5 × 10−7), work (p = 1. 3 × 10−7), and emotional life (p = 6 × 10−5). Conclusion: Colour blindness can significantly impact quality of life for health, emotions, and especially careers. The tool developed here could be useful in future clinical studies to measure changes in CBQoL in response to therapy in conditions where colour vision is affected. We also discuss ways in which everyday problems related to colour vision might be reduced, for example, workplaces could avoid colour coding where a non-colour alternative is possible.
Featured Colour Blindness Articles
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Colourblindness Quality of Life Questionnaire