3-085 - Sleep in the Context of Risk and Adversity: A Lifespan Perspective

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

There is growing recognition of the importance of sleep for physical health, cognitive performance, and social-emotional adjustment across the lifespan. Unfortunately, sleep is known to be disrupted in the context of poverty and associated stressors, such as racial discrimination and community violence. As such, sleep may represent one avenue by which socioeconomic disparities are perpetuated. Further research is needed to elucidate sleep processes in the context of risk and adversity, specifying sleep-related challenges, identifying vulnerability and resilience factors for sleep, and clarifying associations between sleep and functional outcomes.
The current symposium addresses this gap using a lifespan perspective and multiple measures of sleep (actigraphy, parent-report, self-report). The first paper investigates predictors of sleep among African American infants, finding that neighborhood deprivation and maternal emotional availability interact to predict nighttime awakenings. The second paper offers novel insights into sleep patterns of young children experiencing homelessness, identifying links with poverty-related risk and child self-regulation. The third paper evaluates predictors of sleepiness, sleep quality and duration in a diverse sample of adolescents, documenting consistent links between community violence concerns and worse sleep for African American adolescents with less adaptive physiological regulation. Finally, the fourth paper identifies life stress and relationship effectiveness as prospective predictors of adulthood sleep duration and quality using data from a longitudinal study of risk and adaptation. Together, these four papers offer novel insights into sleep in the context of risk and adversity across the lifespan, highlighting areas for future research and identifying potential targets for developmentally-sensitive sleep-promoting interventions.

Sub Unit

• Health, Growth, Injury

Chair

• Madelyn H. Labella, University of Delaware

Individual Presentations

• Neighborhood Deprivation and Infant Sleep - Presenting Author: Melissa Grimes, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; Non-Presenting Author: Marie Camerota, UNC-Chapel Hill; Non-Presenting Author: Cathi Propper, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• Sleep and Self-Regulation Among Young Children Experiencing Homelessness - Presenting Author: Madelyn H. Labella, University of Delaware; Non-Presenting Author: Rebecca Linnea Distefano, University of Minnesota Twin Cities; Non-Presenting Author: Andrew J. Barnes, University of Minnesota; Non-Presenting Author: Ann S. Masten, University of Minnesota Twin Cities

• Community Violence Concerns and Adolescent Sleep - Presenting Author: Lauren Philbrook, Colgate University; Non-Presenting Author: Mona El-Sheikh, Auburn University

• Prospective Prediction of Sleep Quality and Duration from Relationship Effectiveness and Life Stress - Presenting Author: Michelle Englund, University of Minnesota Twin Cities; Non-Presenting Author: Chloe O. Huelsnitz, University of Minnesota Twin Cities; Non-Presenting Author: Jeffry A. Simpson, University of Minnesota Twin Cities; Non-Presenting Author: Alexander J. Rothman, University of Minnesota Twin Cities