A Multilevel Perspective to Understand Individual and Environmental Stressors on Sleep

Racial/ethnic minorities and lower socioeconomic populations are disproportionately affected by insufficient sleep-short sleep duration, poor sleep quality and sleep disorders, however the determinants of poor sleep in these populations are not well understood. Growing research shows that the neighborhood environment affects sleep, however, this literature is limited by self-reported measures and a focus on the neighborhood as opposed to the home, which may have significant implications for sleep. Therefore, there is a need to understand the multi-level determinants of objectively measured sleep across different housing conditions in order to improve sleep and subsequent health outcomes. The goal of this pilot project is to 1) collect objective measures of sleep (7-day actigraphy); 2) determine how sleep varies across housing conditions; and 3) quantify the independent and interactive associations between environmental (noise, ultrafine particles, thermal comfort) and individual stressors with sleep patterns and sleep disorders among 50 participants. The data collection will occur in conjunction with the field visit for the HOME study. Data generated from this pilot study will serve as preliminary data for a larger NIH grant to improve sleep through multilevel interventions.

Awardee: Dayna A. Johnson, PhD, MPH, MS, MSW

Dayna A. Johnson is a Sleep Epidemiologist and post-doctoral fellow at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Her research employs a multilevel framework to explore the social and environmental determinants of sleep and sleep disorders across diverse populations with the intention to address sleep disparities and subsequent cardiovascular outcomes. Dr. Johnson is broadly interested in social determinants of health, sleep health, racial/ethnic health disparities, neighborhood contextual factors, psychosocial stressors and cardiovascular outcomes.

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