Childhood is one of the most important stages for physical and cognitive growth during the life course. For young children, sleep is one of the major contributors to healthy development; poor sleep quality and short sleep duration can detrimentally affect developmental progress. In addition to physiological contributors to poor sleep, social factors may affect young children’s sleep. Prior findings suggest that demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, such as race and parent’s educational attainment, may contribute to sleep health for children. Furthermore, limited prior research suggests that neighborhood attributes may affect sleep for both children and adults alike. To my knowledge, no study exists that examines neighborhood effects and sleep for children under the age of six. Therefore, my investigation examines the effect of neighborhood disadvantage on the bedtimes of kindergarten-aged children, a proxy for sleep health.
In order to examine the effects of neighborhood disadvantage on sleep, this study utilizes multilevel statistical methods to determine the influence of both individual- and neighborhood-level characteristics. The results from these analyses indicate that while individual-level demographic and socioeconomic characteristics contribute explain more variance in bedtimes than neighborhood-level attributes, neighborhoods significantly affect bedtimes—especially racial composition and overall levels of educational attainment. These findings suggest the need for further research on the effects of neighborhoods on sleep and ultimately health outcomes.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UTAHS/oai:digitalcommons.usu.edu:etd-8108 |
| Date | 01 May 2018 |
| Creators | Graham, Carlyn E. |
| Publisher | DigitalCommons@USU |
| Source Sets | Utah State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | All Graduate Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | Copyright for this work is held by the author. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user. For more information contact digitalcommons@usu.edu. |
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