Perceived Discrimination and Adolescent Sleep in a Community Sample

Abstract

ease, and major depression (Irwin 2015). Because adolescents are a population vulnerable to poor sleep during a key developmental period of significant physiological and environmental change, they are an important group to systematically assess with regard to sleep patterns and social conditions linked to chronic Perceived Discrimination and Adolescent Sleep in a Community Sample br idget J. goosby, Jacob e. che a dle, W hit ney strongba K, tay lor c. roth, a nd timoth y d. nelson Sleep is a key restorative process, and poor sleep is linked to disease and mortality risk. The adolescent population requires more sleep on average than adults but are most likely to be sleep deprived. Adolescence is a time of rapid social upheaval and sensitivity to social stressors including discrimination. This study uses two weeks of daily e-diary measures documenting discrimination exposure and concurrent objective sleep indicators measured using actigraphy. We assess associations between daily discrimination and contemporaneous sleep with a diverse sample of adolescents. This novel study shows youth with higher average discrimination reports have worse average sleep relative to their counterparts. Interestingly, youth reporting daily discrimination have better sleep the day of the report than youth who do not.

Racial Disparities in Sleep: Associations With Discrimination Among Ethnic/Racial Minority Adolescents

“…Scores were summed each day (range = 0–5). Consistent with other research employing daily diary methods daily discrimination was a relatively low‐frequency event ( M = 0.14, SD = 0.48; Goosby et al., ; Seaton & Douglass, ; Torres & Ong, ; Zeiders et al., ); therefore, discrimination was dichotomized to indicate whether the adolescent experienced any of the above discriminatory experiences that day (0 = no discrimination, 1 = discrimination, M = 0.09, SD = 0.29). To maintain a temporal ordering between discrimination and sleep, the analyses investigate the same‐day effects of discrimination on sleep (i.e., today's discrimination predicting tonight's sleep).…”

“…As others have done, the Everyday Discrimination scale (Williams, Yu, Jackson, & Anderson, ) was adapted for daily use (Goosby et al., ). Each night, adolescents reported on five discrimination experiences that day (e.g., treated with less courtesy or respect than other people, received poorer service than others in restaurants or stores; people acted as if I was not smart, people acted as if they were afraid of me, I was threatened or harassed, 1 = yes , 0 = no ).…”

“…Sleep is yet another developmental outcome and health indicator where ethnic/racial minorities suffer from disparities (Adam, Snell, & Pendry, ; Adenekan et al., ; Hale & Do, ; Ruiter, Decoster, Jacobs, & Lichstein, ). In fact, sleep may be no different from other health disparities that are linked to discrimination and unfair treatment (Goosby, Cheadle, Strong‐Bak, Roth, & Nelson, ). There is emerging research among adolescents, young adults, and adults observing a link between discrimination and sleep disturbances (Beatty et al., ; Goosby et al., ; Hicken, Lee, Ailshire, Burgard, & Williams, ; Huynh & Gillen‐O'Neel, ; Lewis et al., ; Slopen, Lewis, & Williams, ; Zeiders et al., ); however, this research has relied primarily on self‐reported sleep, cross‐sectional research designs, or limited samples, leaving open questions of whether there is a direct, daily association between discrimination and sleep, and how daily sleep disturbances are linked to discrimination.…”

“…In fact, sleep may be no different from other health disparities that are linked to discrimination and unfair treatment (Goosby, Cheadle, Strong‐Bak, Roth, & Nelson, ). There is emerging research among adolescents, young adults, and adults observing a link between discrimination and sleep disturbances (Beatty et al., ; Goosby et al., ; Hicken, Lee, Ailshire, Burgard, & Williams, ; Huynh & Gillen‐O'Neel, ; Lewis et al., ; Slopen, Lewis, & Williams, ; Zeiders et al., ); however, this research has relied primarily on self‐reported sleep, cross‐sectional research designs, or limited samples, leaving open questions of whether there is a direct, daily association between discrimination and sleep, and how daily sleep disturbances are linked to discrimination. Addressing these gaps in the literature, this study asks: on days in which ethnic/racial minority adolescents experience discrimination, do they also suffer from sleep disturbances?…”

“…In research among college students and adults, discrimination has been observed to fully mediate ethnic/racial differences in sleep disturbances between Black and White individuals (Fuller‐Rowell et al., ; Thomas et al., ). In longitudinal designs, discrimination has been prospectively related to sleep disturbances among ethnic/racial minority adults (Lewis et al., ), young adults (Zeiders et al., ), and adolescents (Goosby et al., ) implicating discrimination as impacting subsequent sleep disturbances. As such, there is reason to suspect that discrimination may be associated with ethnic/racial disparities in sleep.…”