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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sleep
Sec. Sleep and Breathing
Volume 4 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frsle.2025.1511969
Disparities in objective sleep measures among individuals who have undergone polysomnographic studies
Provisionally accepted
Min-Woong Sohn 1
N Drew Farr 1
Hyeeun K Shin 1
Soojung Ahn 2
Myla Goldman 3 Sara N Pasha 1 Hyojung Kang 4 Chae Won Kim 1
Jennifer Lobo 5*- 1 University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, United States
- 2 Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, United States
- 3 Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, United States
- 4 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois, United States
- 5 University of Virginia, Charlottesville, United States
Background: Previous studies have amply demonstrated shorter self-reported sleep duration for Black patients compared to White patients. Evidence for disparities in objectively measured sleep is still mixed. Our objective is to assess disparities in objectively measured sleep parameters between races/ethnicities using data from an academic medical center in the US.We used data extracted through text mining from sleep reports of inlab polysomnography (PSG) studies conducted for adults aged 18 years or older at the University of Virginia Health System between 2010 and 2021. All studies with total sleep time (TST) < one hour were excluded. In multivariable analyses, we controlled for age, sex, body mass index, marital status, season, health insurance, comorbidities, and use of medications that may interfere with sleep in one year prior to the sleep study.The study sample included 5,331 patients of whom 69% were non-Hispanic (NH) White, 23% NH Black, 4% Hispanic/Latinx, and 3% other or unknown. They were 57±16, 52±14, 49±14, and 54±14 years old and 45%, 30%, 33%, and 41% male, respectively. Average TST was 342±84 minutes, sleep efficiency 74%, apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) 15±17, with 69% having obstructive sleep apnea (36% mild; 22% moderate; 12% severe). After adjusting for covariates, Black patients had shorter N3 sleep by 10 minutes (95% CI = -11.9, -7.6) and longer REM sleep by 7 minutes (95% CI = 4.8, 8.6) compared to NH White patients. We did not find significant differences in TST, AHI, and sleep efficiency between racial/ethnic groups.4 Conclusions: Our objective data does not show consistently unfavorable sleep measures for racial and ethnic minorities. More research is needed to better understand how much of these differences are due to underlying physiology versus social/environmental factors.
Keywords: Sleep disparities, Total sleep time, Sleep disordered breathing, sleep quality, REM sleep time
Received: 15 Oct 2024; Accepted: 13 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Sohn, Farr, Shin, Ahn, Goldman, Pasha, Kang, Kim and Lobo. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Jennifer Lobo, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, United States
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