Key Development
An estimated 28.8% of Vietnamese schoolchildren have myopia, according to a recent meta-analysis. Against that backdrop, Vietnam’s first hosting of AOC 2026 matters less as an international-conference milestone and more because it places a growing public-health problem at the intersection of workforce development, technology and care-delivery redesign. The same meta-analysis estimated pooled refractive-error prevalence at 37.6%, although substantial heterogeneity between studies means these figures should not be treated as precise national prevalence estimates.
Held in Da Nang on September 19–20, AOC 2026 ran alongside the Asian Optometric Conference and Optometry Vietnam Conference, with approximately 60 scientific presentations and sessions. Topics ranged from myopia management, specialty contact lenses and orthokeratology to binocular vision, glaucoma, dry eye, digital imaging, public health and optometric scope of practice.
The strategic signal is that optometry is being discussed not simply as better refraction and spectacle dispensing, but increasingly as a front line for screening, longitudinal management and referral into specialist ophthalmology.
Why It Matters
- Myopia is becoming a chronic-care market. A one-time eye examination followed by spectacle correction is increasingly insufficient when the objective becomes monitoring progression and managing risk over many years.
- Primary eye care can address a workforce bottleneck. WHO identifies uncorrected refractive error as the leading cause of vision impairment in both children and adults. A stronger optometry workforce can shift appropriate screening and follow-up away from specialist hospitals.
- Technology is expanding the addressable market. Myopia-control lenses, specialty contacts, Ortho-K, digital imaging and screening platforms create a considerably broader clinical and commercial ecosystem than conventional prescription eyewear.
- Access remains the structural constraint. WHO projects global myopia prevalence to reach approximately 3.36 billion people by 2030 and highlights shortages of competent personnel, affordability, quality oversight and surveillance as key barriers to refractive-error care.
Healthcare Insight Analysis
Healthcare Insight’s view is that AOC 2026 risks being interpreted too narrowly as an academic milestone, when its more meaningful implication is care-model transformation.
Optometry has unusual healthcare economics. The conditions it manages are highly prevalent, often relatively straightforward to identify, but require enormous numbers of patient interactions. That makes refractive care structurally suited to distributed delivery rather than specialist-hospital concentration.
If appropriately trained optometrists can deliver standardized refraction, myopia monitoring, binocular-vision assessment and contact-lens management while identifying clinical red flags for referral, they effectively create a layer between the community and ophthalmologists.
That model aligns closely with WHO’s SPECS 2030 framework, which organizes refractive-error strategy around five pillars: Services, Personnel, Education, Cost and Surveillance. WHO Member States have adopted a global target to increase effective refractive-error coverage by 40 percentage points by 2030.
For Vietnam, this makes workforce development potentially more consequential than any individual device presented at AOC.
There is, however, an important counterargument: more technology and more optometry services do not automatically create better eye health.
The country’s epidemiological baseline still needs strengthening. The recent Vietnamese meta-analysis found very high heterogeneity between studies. A separate 2026 analysis of more than 141,000 school-health examinations across major cities also reported substantial refractive-error prevalence, but remains a preprint and should not be interpreted as a national estimate.
Without standardized screening thresholds, clinical competencies, referral protocols and outcome tracking, the commercial market for myopia control could expand faster than quality governance.
That distinction matters because the opportunity is not simply to sell more lenses. It is to create a repeatable care pathway from school screening through diagnosis, intervention, monitoring and specialist referral.
Market Implications
Hospitals and eye clinics: appropriate refraction and monitoring services could increasingly shift toward optometry-led models, allowing ophthalmologists to concentrate on pathology, surgery and complex disease.
Medtech, contact-lens and optical companies: demand should broaden across diagnostic devices, myopia-control products, specialty lenses and digital screening. Clinical evidence and practitioner education will become stronger differentiators.
Universities and training providers: workforce quality is likely to become a strategic bottleneck. The important metric is not simply graduate volume but standardized competency and supervised clinical exposure.
Health authorities and payers: school-based screening, surveillance and clearly defined referral pathways could generate greater population impact than episodic eye-screening campaigns.
Two signals matter after AOC 2026: whether Vietnam develops a more standardized screening–management–referral pathway, and whether myopia management becomes integrated into school and primary healthcare rather than remaining concentrated in urban private services.
If those shifts occur, AOC 2026 will represent more than a successful conference. It may mark the point at which optometry starts becoming genuine primary eye-care infrastructure in Vietnam.