Prosper II

Country

India

Background issues

Globally, 1.1 billion people lack a simple pair of reading glasses to correct impaired near vision, a condition called presbyopia. Presbyopia, the essentially universal decline in unaided near vision that occurs with ageing, can begin at age 30 years, but commonly becomes functionally apparent by 40, and is essentially complete by 55, meaning that presbyopia is most common at the height of the working years. PROSPER I showed the impact that the provision of reading glasses has on the productivity of agricultural workers. PROSPER II is designed to investigate whether productivity gains can be achieved in another major industry, the textile industry.

Trial design

PROSPER II (PROductivity Study of Presbyopia Elimination in Rural-dwellers) is a randomised controlled trial that will evaluate whether providing glasses to textile workers in India will lead to an increase in workplace productivity. 500 consenting adults (predominantly women) aged 30 years or older with uncorrected presbyopia will be randomly assigned to either an intervention group or control group. People in the intervention group will receive reading glasses at the beginning of the trial, and people in the control group will receive free glasses at the end of the trial if they need them.

Outcomes

We will analyse the difference in the change in mean workplace efficiency between the intervention and control groups. Efficiency will be calculated as the proportion of target production realised by a worker per unit time.

Timeline

  • Fieldwork complete.
  • Data analysis underway.
  • Publication in Q2 2025

ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04629820