Actigraphic Sleep Patterns of U.S. Hispanics: The Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos

Abstract

There are important differences in actigraphically measured sleep across U.S. Hispanic/Latino heritages. Individuals of Mexican heritage have longer and more consolidated sleep, while those of Puerto Rican heritage have shorter and more fragmented sleep. These differences may have clinically important effects on health outcomes.

Sleep Patterns and Hypertension Using Actigraphy in the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos

“…21 Analytic sample: Sueño Ancillary Study: This study analyzed data from the Sueño Ancillary Study, which was designed to obtain further indepth information on sleep habits through questionnaires and actigraphy in a subsample of 2,252 HCHS/SOL participants aged 18 to 64 years without severe sleep disorders from the years 2010 to 2013. 22,23 There were 2,189 eligible participants in Sueño; 33 were excluded because they did not have at least 5 valid days of actigraphy, and eight were excluded for lack of hypertension data, leaving 2,148 for basic age-and sex-adjusted analyses. For multivariable analyses, there were 34 people with a missing covariate value who were removed from analyses, primarily due to lack of information from the sleep study monitor to calculate AHI.…”

“…Seven days of wrist actigraphy with an Actiwatch Spectrum (Philips Respironics) was used to estimate sleep. 22,23 Participants wore the actigraph on the nondominant wrist. Activity and light data, along with a sleep diary for each day, were collected throughout this period in 30-s epochs.…”

“…Rest-sleep periods were identified using a standardized protocol and validated scoring algorithm alongside polysomnography on an epoch by epoch basis. [22][23][24] Five or more days were considered valid actigraphy data. We then assessed sleep habits in the domains of sleep duration (sleep during the primary sleep period) and sleep continuity (sleep efficiency and sleep fragmentation index) as previously defined.…”

“…We then assessed sleep habits in the domains of sleep duration (sleep during the primary sleep period) and sleep continuity (sleep efficiency and sleep fragmentation index) as previously defined. 22,25 Frequent daytime napping was a dichotomous variable defined as two naps or more of 15-min duration over all valid data. Average sleep duration, sleep efficiency, and sleep fragmentation index were calculated by averaging across all nights of valid data.…”

Pathways linking racial/ethnic discrimination and sleep among U.S.-born and foreign-born Latinxs

“…For instance, among Latinxs, greater sleep disturbances have been identified among the U.S.-born when compared to the foreign-born, including shorter sleep duration and greater risk for insomnia (Loredo et al, 2010). Unfortunately, knowledge on sleep among Latinxs continues to be scant, and only a few studies have explored the influence of contextual stressors (e.g., discrimination) on the sleep habits of U.S.-born versus foreign-born Latinxs, including those of Mexican-origin (Dudley et al, 2016; Loredo et al, 2010; Slopen et al, 2016). Developing a better understanding of the process by which contextual stressors (i.e., racial/ethnic discrimination) may influence sleep among Latinxs and identifying relevant within group differences, is important to inform the development of interventions and protective factors aimed to promote better sleep among at-risk Latinxs (Slopen et al, 2016).…”