Visual impairment is associated with daily internet use among older Japanese individuals: Cross-sectional study (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Given the health benefits of Internet use among older adults, inadequate use of the Internet is an urgent public health issue in many countries. OBJECTIVE We aimed to determine whether visual impairment is associated with Internet use in a population-based sample of older adults. METHODS This cross-sectional study sourced data for the year 2016 from the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study (JAGES). It included community-dwelling individuals aged ≥ 65 years (n =19,452 ) in Japan. We used multivariate logistic regression with multiple imputations to analyze visual status, daily Internet use, and any correlations between them. RESULTS We observed that 4,599 (23.6%) of respondents used the Internet almost daily. Even after adjusting for several covariates, significant associations persisted between visual status and daily Internet usage. The odds ratios (ORs) tended to increase as visual status improved (P for trend < .001). The adjusted ORs for individuals with excellent and very good visual status who used the Internet almost daily were 1.36 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.20‒1.54) and 1.24 (95% CI: 1.14‒1.35), respectively. Conversely, the adjusted OR for those with fair/poor visual status was 0.75 (95% CI: 0.63‒0.88). CONCLUSIONS Visual impairment negatively impacted the daily use of the Internet by older adults. This highlights the need to address visual impairments to promote Internet use as healthcare services become more easily accessed online.