Objective By understanding myopia related health beliefs correlated to outdoor activities among primary and middle school students in Jing′an district of Shanghai, this paper provides the basis for increasing outdoor activities to prevent myopia and offers health education related policy suggestions.

Methods Using the method of cluster sampling, 1 585 students from grade one to grade two of a primary school and a junior high school in the district were selected for a questionnaire survey to analyze the holding of myopia related health belief factors, outdoor activities and the correlation between them.

Results 18.8% to 44.4% of the students had myopia relevant susceptibility to faith, which rose as their grade rose; 51.5% to 78% of the students had myopia relevant severity belief; 39.3% to 55.6% of the students had myopia relevant threatening faith, which rose as their grade rose; 48.7% to 77.5% of the students had self-efficacy related to prevention of myopia, which fell as their grade rose.Less than 11% of students spent up to 2 hours/day on outdoor activities.Myopia related susceptibility belief, severity belief and threatening belief all had influence on students′ outdoor activities.

Conclusion Therefore it is necessary to strengthen the cognition related to the susceptibility, threat, severity and self-efficacy of myopia to improve the outdoor activities of students, so as to prevent the occurrence and development of myopia among them.