Sleep Among Children

This chapter focuses on the developmental issues that impact sleep during infancy and childhood and link to adult sleep. For example, it examines differences in sleep across childhood as well as the relationship of pediatric and adult sleep health and specific issues such as mother–child bedsharing. The chapter discusses the social determinants of sleep for children—for example, increasing screen time and social media involvement, impact of bedtime routines, the mismatch of school hours to the biology of sleep in teenagers (e.g., highlighting that a reason that high schools start at 8 AM in the United States is so that parents can drop them off before they take off on their long commutes to work).

Sleep Epidemiology

This chapter is a primer on sleep epidemiology—the methods of assessment on how sleep is measured (e.g., self-report [such as the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and the Epworth Sleepiness Scale] vs. with use of objective tools such as actigraphy); validity of sleep measurements; the different dimensions of sleep health and disorders that are of interest (e.g., sleep duration, sleep quality, sleep fragmentation, insomnia, obstructive sleep apnea, social jetlag, snoring, narcolepsy, etc.); general sleep biology and physiology; and why sleep matters (i.e., the epidemiologic consequences of poor sleep health, e.g., connection to other health behaviors and health outcomes such as drug use; sexual risk behaviors; depression; dietary behaviors such as sugar-sweetened beverage consumption; cardiometabolic diseases like obesity, diabetes, and hypertension; and cancer outcomes such as breast cancer).

Sleep Epidemiology

The chapter provides an overview of sleep epidemiology from a social perspective, including the ways social epidemiology can contribute to an improved understand of sleep health across populations. Beyond the topics discussed rigorously in the ensuing chapters (e.g., sleep in pregnancy, sleep among sexual and gender minorities, discrimination, stress and sleep, and neighborhoods and sleep), this chapter briefly discusses other emerging areas of sleep epidemiology such as gender and sleep, and social networks and sleep. It also describes the motivation and rationale for this book and guides the reader through the structure of the rest of the book.

Connecting Neighborhoods and Sleep Health

This chapter is a meta-commentary on the field of neighborhood health research. Neighborhood research has hitherto focused on a variety of health behaviors and outcomes—such as diet, smoking, drinking, physical activity—but not so much sleep. This chapter focuses on the neighborhood social and physical context (e.g., neighborhood safety, neighborhood stigma, neighborhood noise, neighborhood light, and neighborhood crowding) and how it can impact sleep health and sleep disorders across populations and geographies. In addition to discussing a range of neighborhood exposures, the chapter discusses the designs of studies as well general methodological issues in the neighborhood health field. The chapter also provides a discussion of neighborhood-level interventions that can be utilized in the sleep field. Lastly, this chapter highlights the advancement of neighborhood research extending to sleep health.

Bidirectional Relationships Between Work and Sleep

This chapter focuses on how work and work experiences such as occupational demands, job autonomy, job stress, work hours, and work-related discrimination influence sleep across populations. A model of sleep and work is offered that accounts for the role of social factors. Empirical evidence demonstrates how these work factors such as occupational demands, autonomy, work schedules, long work hours, selection or placement into labor market sectors, work stress, social support at work, and work-related discrimination impact sleep health. Epidemiological evidence is further provided for sleep health disparities in the work–sleep relationship by race/ethnicity and immigration status.

Sleep Health Among Sexual and Gender Minorities

This chapter focuses on the emerging area of sleep disparities among sexual and gender minorities, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals, as compared to heterosexual and cisgender individuals. It overviews empirical evidence on sexual orientation and gender minority disparities in sleep health, including using data from nationally representative data sets. Factors influencing the sleep of sexual and gender minorities include stress and mental health, social relationships, substance use, HIV, further considerations for transgender individuals, financial hardship, and social and policy issues. Given that this area is nascent, this chapter provides future directions for sleep research and interventions among LGBT populations.

Sleep Among Working Adults

This chapter discusses sleep among working-age adults (defined as roughly between 18 and 65 years old). Five markers of adulthood include (a) living alone or owning a home; (b) finding a long-term partner and living together; (c) working in a full-time, permanent job, which can involve different work environments, commuting, and shift work, and possible unemployment; (d) having children; and (d) saving for the future. This chapter discusses these markers as they relate to sleep, including changes in sleep behaviors across the lifespan in association with employment as well as shift work and the impact of cosleeping with a partner.

Family Relationships in the Context of Sleep

This chapter advances research of sleep by emphasizing the family context to understand sleep. The first part of the chapter focuses on the role of family relationships in sleep, particularly focusing on marital relationships and parent–child relationships. Second, this chapter highlights the importance of the role of family contextual factors on the family’s sleep, including sociodemographic factors, structural conditions, chronic illness, and the transition to parenthood and early parenthood. This chapter concludes with useful methods for studying family processes and sleep and potential interventions for families with sleep problems.

Sleep in Pregnancy

Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring develops inside a woman. This chapter focuses on sleep quality and emergence of sleep disorders in pregnancy, which has implications for both the fetus as well as the mother. An overview of empirical evidence of the association between disturbed sleep in pregnancy and pregnancy-related outcomes is provided along with a ion of The chapter also reviews common sleep disturbances in pregnancy, such as sleep-disordered breathing, insufficient sleep, poor sleep quality, and restless legs syndrome, and synthesizes current knowledge of the impact of poor sleep on pregnancy outcomes, with a particular emphasis on fetal well-being. Evidence is also presented on the potential for maternal sleep to influence fetal origins of chronic disease.

Socioeconomic Status and Sleep

This chapter focuses on how socioeconomic status (SES) can influence sleep health. The chapter overviews traditional SES factors, which include education, income, and employment. Beyond this, the chapter discusses other (less studied) SES factors such as financial hardship and subjective social status among various populations. Socioeconomic sleep disparities in the context of racial/ethnic sleep disparities are considered, and a social ecological model of sleep is discussed, which includes (a) individual-level socioeconomic drivers, which are embedded within (b) social-level socioeconomic drivers, which themselves are embedded within (c) societal-level socioeconomic drivers. The chapter concludes with thoughts for future directions in research.