Solving China's Vision Care Crisis through Evidence-based Policy Advocacy

Project Overview

Of all children in the world with poor vision who lack glasses, half live in China. Most are in rural areas, where service provision is nearly nonexistent and misconceptions about myopia and glasses are widespread. This is a public health crisis of massive proportions. To drive real change, we need rigorous evidence that vision correction delivers long-term educational benefits.

We are currently conducting a three-year randomized trial across more than 100 rural junior high schools in Northern China. The project, called See Well to Stay in School (SWISH), is designed to assess whether providing free glasses increases the rate at which children attend academic high school—an outcome that only half of rural children currently achieve, but which is critical for accessing college and participating fully in China’s economic growth.

This builds on over a decade of REAP-led research showing that a simple pair of glasses can double what children learn in school—an effect greater than that of family income, parental education, or other school-based health programs. Now, SWISH aims to show that vision correction doesn’t just boost learning: it changes lives.