Neighborhoods and sleep health among adults: A systematic review

Byoungjun Kim; Charles C Branas; Kara E Rudolph; Christopher N Morrison; Basile Chaix; Wendy M Troxel; Dustin T Duncan

doi:10.1016/j.sleh.2022.03.005

Neighborhoods and sleep health among adults: A systematic review

Sleep Health. 2022 Jun;8(3):322-333. doi: 10.1016/j.sleh.2022.03.005. Epub 2022 Apr 30.

Authors

Byoungjun Kim¹, Charles C Branas², Kara E Rudolph², Christopher N Morrison³, Basile Chaix⁴, Wendy M Troxel⁵, Dustin T Duncan²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, New York, USA; Department of Population Health, New York University Grossman School of Medicine, New York, New York, USA. Electronic address: byoungjun.kim@nyulangone.org.
² Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, New York, USA.
³ Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, New York, USA; Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
⁴ Sorbonne Université, INSERM, Institut Pierre Louis d'Epidémiologie et de Santé Publique IPLESP, Nemesis Team, F75012 Paris, France.
⁵ Behavior and Policy Sciences, RAND Corporation, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.

Abstract

Objective: Sleep is an important determinant of various health outcomes, and insufficient sleep and sleep disorders are a public health crisis in the United States. The objective of this review is to provide an update on scientific contributions to our understanding of the social/built environmental determinants of sleep health. In particular, this review focuses on the diverse measurements of neighborhood characteristics and sleep outcomes, as well as analytic approaches for quantifying the effect of neighborhood on sleep health.

Methods: Two major electronic databases were searched and reviewed for relevant articles that examined the associations of social/built environments with sleep health. Inclusion criteria included peer-reviewed empirical studies on neighborhood-level characteristics and sleep health among adult populations.

Results: Systematic searches in MEDLINE/PubMed and SCOPUS identified 52 eligible articles (out of 11,084). Various social/built environmental characteristics of neighborhoods were identified as potential determinants of sleep health, and the majority of studies examined neighborhood social capital, safety, and environmental stressors. However, 88% of included articles employed cross-sectional study designs, limiting causal identification. We found substantial differences in neighborhood measures, variations in sleep health measurements with the majority employing self-reported methods, and inconsistent model specifications. While the majority of articles (48%) utilized perceived neighborhood conditions as the main exposure, more recent studies (23%) employed geographic information systems to measure neighborhood characteristics.

Conclusions: To establish the causal relationships between social/physical neighborhood characteristics and sleep health, more studies should be conducted with longitudinal, quasi-experimental, and randomized trial designs coupled with objectively measured neighborhood and sleep health parameters.

Keywords: Neighborhood; Sleep health; Social determinants; Spatial analysis; Study design; Systematic review.

Publication types

Review
Systematic Review
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

MeSH terms

Adult
Cross-Sectional Studies
Humans
Residence Characteristics*
Self Report
Sleep Deprivation
Sleep*
United States

Grants and funding

T32 HS026120/HS/AHRQ HHS/United States