Colour vision in the spotlight at City, University of London

Occupational vision standards, ensuring sufficient support for children with colour vision deficiencies and a two-step process for advanced colour vision testing were discussed at a City, University of London event on 18 July.

The Colour in Health and Employment Symposium was organised by Dr Marisa Carmona-Rodriguez and Professor John Barbur of the Centre for Applied Vision Research.

Colour Blind Awareness chief executive Kathryn Albany-Ward highlighted during her presentation the lack of support for school children with colour vision deficiencies.

Simple solutions could be incorporated in classroom to address the unmet need, including using hatching and other patterns on graphs rather than solely colours.

Professor Stephen Dain, from the University of New South Wales, shared his expertise on occupational vision standards within institutions such as the Australian Federal Police, military, state police, ambulance services, fire brigades and railways.

Professor Barbur shared a quicker two-step process for advanced colour vision testing based on the Colour Assessment and Diagnosis test.

An initial screening test would ensure that fewer people require a full and more costly assessment.

University of Newcastle PhD candidate Cat Pattie presented her findings suggesting that commercially available EnChroma colour filter lenses do not help colour blind individuals to discriminate between colours, while Professor Kenneth Knoblauch shared research highlighting that EnChroma colour filter lenses may help those with deficient colour vision in the perception of contrast.

Image credit: City, University of London