Social Epidemiology of Sleep: Extant Evidence and Future Directions

Purpose of Review How well people sleep and what social factors determine their sleep are two key questions that have generated great interests in public health and epidemiology recently. The goal of this review is to assess the evidence of how multi-level of social constructs relates to unhealthy sleep in recent studies. Recent Findings Studies document a wide range of social correlates of sleep at the individual, interpersonal, community, and societal levels. A growing number of population-based studies incorporate objective measures. Overall, disadvantaged statuses and poor social environment predict unhealthy sleep duration and poor sleep quality. Summary Much remains unknown about the mechanisms through which social factors affect sleep. Furthermore, most studies rely on cross-sectional data and have methodological limitations that make causal inference difficult. These point to great opportunities for social epidemiology to contribute expertise in theory and rigorous analysis to uncover the secrets by which social world affects sleep.