Will Disease awareness induce healthier behaviour?―A regression-discontinuity analysis of effects of myopia diagnosis among Chinese adolescents

Abstract

ABSTRACT While myopia adversely impacts children’s quality of life and human capital development, little attention has been paid to how children cope with it when they become aware of their myopic status. This study estimates the effects of myopia awareness on children’s screen time, including television viewing time and Internet surfing time, the reduction of which is medically recommended to safeguard child vision. Based on data from a large-scale survey of middle-school students, the China Education Panel Survey, we exploit the jump in the likelihood of myopia awareness at the threshold for myopia diagnosis. Our fuzzy regression discontinuity analysis reveals that around the normal-vision cut-off, students who are aware of themselves being myopic spent significantly less time watching television (by 0.24–0.30 hours/day on weekdays and 0.28–0.40 hours/day on weekends) and surfing the Internet (by 0.11–0.14 hours/day on weekdays) than those unaware. Further explorations reveal that these behavioural changes are mostly self-motivated, as students’ awareness of myopia did not lead to stricter parental control over their screen time.