Eight to ten percent of all males suffer this affliction in various forms and degrees of severity. The severity ranges from mild difficulties with shades and tints of a few hues to a complete absence of all color perception. Less than one percent of women are so afflicted.

People can be classified by their lack of color vision into three major groups. The first group is those with a mild defect are either “red weak” or “green weak”. Half of all color defective individuals are so afflicted. The next group consists of those with the two most common forms of severe color defects: red or green deficient. These individuals use only two primary colors. These individuals would perceive the colors red, green, and orange as a brownish tone. Yellow would appear in a tan tone. Blue and White are not affected.( I should note there are some individuals who are blue deficient but this is not as common).

The last group is those who cannot distinguish any hues at all and to whom the world appears no more colorful that a black and white movie. Total color deficiency is rare and usually accompanied by other sever vision impairments.

Color deficiencies are for the most part hereditary in origin ( some diseases and certain drugs can induce deficiencies because of damage to the cells of the retina) These deficiencies remain constant throughout life. However special contact lenses are available to improve color discrimination.

During our regularly scheduled visit we can perform the standard test to evaluate an employee’s color discrimination capabilities. Individuals who are not evaluated for color deficiency will have a difficult time processing the information accurately and in a productive manner. Whether they are attempting to read a printed page, be warned by color coded safety signs, or view a software program on a monitor; you should consider that eight to ten percent of your male workforce that might be affected by your color selections.