ABSTRACT
The aim of the present study was to show the prevalence of refractive error in early years of life from urban and rural background. The subjects were school children in the age group of 6-16 years selected from an urban school of Hyderabad (Cambridge high school langerhouz Hyderabad ), and a rural school of Ranga Reddy Dist. (Zilla Parishad School Peddamanglaram) of AP by conducting school health camps at the premises of the above schools. This study was carried out on total 578 student for visual acuity assessment, out of this 302 student were from urban School and 276 were from rural Schools. The prevalence of ammetropia was less in rural group. Out of the affected subjects there were more number of uncorrected ammetropic children though the magnitude of refractive state was less when compared with urban population. This could be due to neglected standards of life and low socio-economic way of living and parental literacy also account for this situation.