Colour Blind Awareness Day 2019 is on the 6th September – as we type, just a couple of days away! We thought we’d take this opportunity to do some myth busting about colour blindness – also known as Colour Vision Deficiency.
“No one I know is colour blind so it’s not that common”
Let’s start with the statistics. Across the world 1 in 12 men have some form of colour blindness and 1 in 200 women. So the chances are you do know someone. Whether they talk about it or not is a different matter! Those statistics alter slightly in different regions of the world but essentially, 3 million people in the UK (4.5% of the population) and 300 million people worldwide have some form of colour blindness.
“People with colour blindness can’t see any colours”
The majority of people with colour blindness have colour vision deficiency – so they can see some, or indeed, many colours. Some people do have Monochromacy which means they don’t see any colour at all – but the statistics estimate that to be 1 in 30-50,000 people
“People with colour blindness see everything as brown”
This is one of the most common myths and although has elements of truth in it, isn’t accurate. The people behind Colour Blind Awareness Day 2019 have a great explanation of how the different types of colour blindness affect people and examples on their website – so do take a look.
You can also use the coolors.co website to look at different colour combinations. (Click on ‘start the generator and then use the space bar to create new combinations) and then click on the to see what they look like to people with different types of colour blindness
“You can cure colour blindness with special glasses”
Colour blindness is a genetic condition. You can’t cure it.
The exact cause isn’t known, to date 19 different chromosomes have been identified as having involvement with colour vision deficiency. Research continues and part of Colour Blind Awareness Day is to raise the profile of the condition and inspire further research. Research suggests that 40% of people with colour blindness leave secondary school having no idea that they have the condition – whereas the other 60% report significant impact on their daily lives.
Colour blindness can also be caused by some medications, pollutants, chemicals, brain injuries and ageing.
What some glasses can do is enhance the ability of the wearer to perceive/decipher more colours. So, for those who struggle to see the red aspect of colours – they might be able to see purple or orange – which without the glasses they would see as blue or yellow.
Our last post about Jez at the BBC explains more about how the EnChroma™ glasses we stock here at EYES on St Albans can help.
We hope that this dispelled some of the myths about colour blindness – if you have any questions, please do ask us – either via our social media platforms (all @eyesonstalbans) or contact us We’ll be talking all things Colour Blind Awareness Day on Friday – and if you are colour blind, don’t forget to use the hashtags
#ColourBlindAwarenessDay
#Iam1in12 #Iam1in200
#1in12boys #1in12men #1in200girls #1in200women
#1ineveryclassroom
#Iwishmyteacherknew
#kickthestigma
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