Unsafe Neighborhood Linked to Poorer Adult Sleep Health

Growing up in an unsafe neighborhood for Black women impacted sleep health in adulthood. A sample of 1,611 Black women in Detroit, Michigan, who enrolled in the Study of Environment, Lifestyle, and Fibroids reported their perceived childhood neighborhood safety at ages 5, 10, and 15 years. Participants also reported their sleep duration, quality, and insomnia symptoms.

Short sleep duration of fewer than seven hours and frequently waking up feeling unrested during adulthood were reported by approximately 60% of women and 10% reported frequent insomnia symptoms.

Unsafe Environment and Insomnia Linked

The perceived unsafe neighborhood at ages 5 and 15 years was associated with frequent insomnia symptoms and frequently waking up feeling unrested, respectively.

Participants who perceived their neighborhood as unsafe at age 10 years had a marginally higher prevalence of both frequently waking up feeling unrested and frequent insomnia symptoms during adulthood.

“Due to structural racism and historical practices of redlining as well as contemporary residential segregation, Black/African American children are disproportionately overrepresented in neighborhoods characterized by concentrated poverty and being unsafe,” said lead author Symielle Gaston, who has a doctorate in epidemiology and is a research fellow with the National Institute of Environmental Health Science.

“Our results suggest that intervening to help make a child’s neighborhood feel safe, a modifiable target in which both communities and policymakers can intercede may help prevent other downstream risk factors, namely poor sleep health before it develops and potentially negatively impacts both mental and physical health.”

Gaston added that while addressing neighborhood safety at any age is important; middle childhood may be an optimal time for safety and sleep interventions since relationships between perceived safety with adulthood sleep were most consistent. She hopes to continue this line of research using objective measures over the life course and in different geographic areas.

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The Division of Intramural Research funded this study within NIEHS, part of the National Institutes of Health, and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds designated for NIH research.

Source-Eurekalert