Frequency of color blindness among Nigerian school children in Lagos

Plates 1-15 of the Ishihara tests for color blindness were administered to 5,580 boys and 5,405 girls in primary and secondary schools in Lagos. The difference between males and females in the frequency of total color blindness was not significant. The frequency of total color blindness among the children was 0.19%. However, the frequencies of red-green color blindness, which were 3.60% and 0.81% among the males and females, respectively, were significantly different. Deutans occurred at a higher frequency than protans among both male and female red-green color blind individuals, but the differences among males and also females were not significant. In addition, there was no significant difference between the sexes in the occurrence of deutans and protans. Although the frequency of red-green color blindness detected among males in this study is significantly lower than that reported for Lagos in another survey, which gave a frequency similar to that for Caucasians, the frequency obtained in the present study is similar to frequencies reported for other populations of Blacks of African Ancestry. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 10:283-288, 1998. © 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.