U.S. Children Aged 9 to 13 Sleep Average of 7.45 Hours/Night
Physician’s Weekly reported on a study led by Dr. Giddens at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, part of the National Institutes of Health, and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Earlier studies of children’s sleep across racial and income groups relied mostly on questionnaires or small samples. This one used mobile actigraphy in 4,207 children aged 9 to 13 from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, who wore a Fitbit device at home for at least seven nights.
Because the sleep data came from a wearable instead of questionnaires, it did not depend on what families remembered. The children slept 7.45 hours a night on average, less than recommended for healthy development. Black children slept about 34 minutes less than White children, children from low-income families about 16 minutes less than those from high-income families, and older children about 32 minutes less than younger ones, mostly because they went to bed later. Neighborhood deprivation, experiences of discrimination, and parental age made no meaningful difference. The authors concluded that sleep disparities appear early in life and are likely to contribute to poorer health in adulthood if they are not corrected.
Dr. Giddens brings the same objective, wearable-based approach to her practice, using mobile actigraphy for appropriate sleep concerns so that diagnosis rests on measurement rather than recall. The study is listed on the Publications page.
The study
- Giddens NT, Juneau P, Manza P, Wiers CE, Volkow ND. Disparities in sleep duration among American children: effects of race and ethnicity, income, age, and sex. PNAS. 2022;119(30):e2120009119.
- Full text, free on PubMed Central
- PubMed record
- Abstract on NASA/Harvard ADS
- NIMH Data Archive study record (ABCD data used in the analysis)