Evaluating associations between neighborhood resources and sleep health among urban-dwelling Black adolescents

Objective: Despite policies that promote poor sleep environments for many Black families, the links between neighborhood characteristics and adolescent sleep health have received little attention. Methods: Adolescents (N = 400; M age 16.39 years; 64% female at birth) who identified as Black/African American residing in a large metropolitan area and their caregivers participated. Caregivers provided demographic information and completed measures of neighborhood safety and cohesion. Home addresses were geocoded to census tract to generate COI 3.0 scores (overall, three domains and 14 subdomains). Adolescents wore actigraphs for 8 days to derive sleep indices (timing, duration, efficiency, and regularity). Linear mixed models examined associations between neighborhood variables and sleep indices adjusting for age, sex, household income, caregivers’ highest level of education, and weekend status. Results: Adolescents were underslept with sleep duration averaging 6.2 hours/night with sleep onset times of 12:57 AM and offset times of 8:17 AM averaged across 8 days. Males had later sleep onset, fewer hours of sleep, less efficient sleep, and more variability in their waketimes as compared with females. Living in a neighborhood with more educational and housing resources, less air pollution, and lower employment rates was associated with greater sleep efficiency, earlier bedtimes, and less bedtime variability. Conclusions: Black urban-dwelling adolescents are not getting adequate sleep, and males are at greater risk. Residing in neighborhoods with fewer educational opportunities and more air pollution was linked to sleep. Future work should consider the role of policy changes and protective factors that may mitigate associations between neighborhood factors on sleep health.