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Perceived Insufficient Rest or Sleep Among Adults — United States, 2008

PainSci » bibliography » U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2009
updated
Tags: chronic pain, sleep, random, medicine, prevention, injury, mind, pain problems

Two articles on PainSci cite U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2009: 1. The Insomnia Guide for Chronic Pain Patients 2. Insomnia Until it Hurts 

PainSci notes on U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2009:

This report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s presents evidence that sleep-deprivation is common and serious: about 30% of American adults are getting less than 7 hours per night (and of course many of those are getting much less), and at least 10% of people have gotten “insufficient rest or sleep on all days during the preceding 30 days.” That’s one in ten people getting inadequate rest every night for 30 days in a row!

Consider: if 1 in 10 people have gotten inadequate rest every night for 30 days … how many got inadequate rest for 29 days? 28? 27? The report concludes:

The importance of chronic sleep insufficiency is under-recognized as a public health problem, despite being associated with numerous physical and mental health problems, injury, loss of productivity, and mortality. … Health-care providers should consider adding an assessment of chronic rest or sleep insufficiency to routine office visits so they can make needed interventions or referrals to sleep specialists.

I have long believed that this was an almost completely neglected consideration in chronic pain care.

original abstract †Abstracts here may not perfectly match originals, for a variety of technical and practical reasons. Some abstacts are truncated for my purposes here, if they are particularly long-winded and unhelpful. I occasionally add clarifying notes. And I make some minor corrections.

The importance of chronic sleep insufficiency is under-recognized as a public health problem, despite being associated with numerous physical and mental health problems, injury, loss of productivity, and mortality (1,2). Approximately 29% of U.S. adults report sleeping <7 hours per night (3) and 50--70 million have chronic sleep and wakefulness disorders (1). A CDC analysis of 2006 data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) in four states showed that an estimated 10.1% of adults reported receiving insufficient rest or sleep on all days during the preceding 30 days (4). To examine the prevalence of insufficient rest or sleep in all states, CDC analyzed BRFSS data for all 50 states, the District of Columbia (DC), and three U.S. territories (Guam, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Virgin Islands) in 2008. This report summarizes the results, which showed that among 403,981 respondents, 30.7% reported no days of insufficient rest or sleep and 11.1% reported insufficient rest or sleep every day during the preceding 30 days. Females (12.4%) were more likely than males (9.9%) and non-Hispanic blacks (13.3%) were more likely than other racial/ethnic groups to report insufficient rest or sleep. State estimates of 30 days of insufficient rest or sleep ranged from 7.4% in North Dakota to 19.3% in West Virginia. Health-care providers should consider adding an assessment of chronic rest or sleep insufficiency to routine office visits so they can make needed interventions or referrals to sleep specialists.

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